DESCRIPTIVE  BIBLIOGRAPHY 
LABORATORY 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


Gift  of 


PROF.  ROBERT  HARLAN 


*• 


LOTUS-EATOG. 


LOTUS-EATING 


BY 

GEOEGE  WILLIAM  CUETIS, 

AUTHOR  OF  "NILE  NOTES,"  "HOWADJI  IN  SYRIA,"  ETC. 


XllustrateH  tg  Hensett 


'There  's  rosemary,  that's  for  remem"brance  ' 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 
Nos.  329  AND   331    PEARL   STREET, 

FRANKLIN    SQUARE. 

1854. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1852,  by 

HARPER    AND    BROTHERS, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


TO 

CHARLES  A.   DANA. 
Stye  Cetlera 

ORIGINALLY   ADDRESSED   TO   THE    EDITOR, 

ARE    NOW 

AFFECTIONATELY   INSCRIBED  TO  THE   FRIEND. 
Nii\v  YORK,  June,  1852 


Pago 

I. — THE  HUDSON  AND  THE  RHINE, 11 

II.— CATSKILL, 28 

III. — CATSKILL  FALLS, 43 

IV.— TRENTON, 59 

V.— NIAGARA, 75 

VI. — NIAGARA,  AGAIN, 89 

VII.— SARATOGA, 106 

VIII.— LAKE  GEORGE, 127 

IX.— NAHANT, 145 

X.— NEWPORT, 163 

XI. — NEWPORT,  AGAIN, 179 


THE  HUDSON  AND  THE  RHINE, 


I. 


Haitian  nni  tjji  Elite. 


JULY.     ) 
NEWBURGH  ON  THE  HUDSON.  J 

HEKE  could  a  man  meet 
the     summer     more 
pleasantly  than  in  the 
fragrant  silence  of  a 
garden  whence  have 
emanated    the    most 
practical   and   poetic 
suggestions      toward 
the  greater    dignity, 
comfort  and  elegance 
of  country  life  ?     If  the  aspect  of  our 
landscape   yearly  improves,   in  the 
™^  j\  beauty  of  the  houses,  and  in  tasteful  and 
f"     •'  picturesque  rural  treatment,  our  enjoyment 
of  it  will  be  an  obligation  to  Mr.  Downing. 

Not  four  days  away  from  the  city,  I  have  not  yet 
done  roaming,  bewildered  with  the  summer's  breath, 
through  the  garden,  smelling  of  all  the  flowers,  and 


12  LOTUS-EATING. 

returning  to  lie  upon  the  lawn,  and  bask,  dreaming, 
in  the  July  sun.  What  a  cold  word  is  "  beautiful" 
to  express  the  ecstasy  which,  in  some  choice  moments 
of  midsummer,  suddenly  overwhelms  your  mind,  like 
an  unexpected  and  exquisite  thought. 

I  found  a  few  late  spring-flowers  this  morning,  upon 
the  lawn,  and  welcomed  them  with  Robert  Herrick's 
Greeting  to  the  Yiolets  : 

Welcome,  maids  of  honor, 

You  do  bring 

In  the  Spring, 
And  wait  upon  her. 

She  has  virgins  many. 

Fresh  and  fair; 

Yet  you  are 
More  sweet  than  any. 

You  're  the  Maiden  Posies, 

And  so  graced 

To  be  placed 
'Fore  damask  roses. 

Yet  though  thus  respected, 

By-aud-by, 

You  do  lie, 
Poor  girls,  neglected. 

As  I  lay  repeating  these  lines,  whose  melody  is  as 
delicate  as  the  odor  of  the  flowers  they  sing,  I  saw 
the  steamer,  crowded  with  passengers,  hurrying 
away  from  the  city.  For  none  more  than  the  Amer- 
icans make  it  a  principle  to  desert  the  city,  and  none 
less  than  Americans  know  how  to  dispense  with  it. 


THE    HUDSON    AND    THE    KHINE.  13 

So  we  compromise  by  taking  the  city  with  us,  and 
the  country  gently  laughs  us  to  scorn. 

Although  the  day  was  tropical,  on  which  we  left 
New  York,  the  "Keindeer"  ran  with  us  as  if  we  had 
been  mere  Laplanders,  and  our  way  a  frozen  plain, 
instead  of  the  broad,  blue  river.  It  is  only  in  the 
steamer  that  the  Hudson  can  be  truly  perceived  and 
enjoyed.  In  the  Indian  summer,  the  western  shore, 
seen  from  the  railroad,  is  a  swiftly  unrolling  pano- 
rama of  dreams ;  yet  the  rush,  and  roar,  and  sharp 
steam-shriek  would  have  roused  Eip  Van  "Winkle 
himself,  and  the  dust  would  have  choked  and  blinded 
him  as  he  opened  his  eyes.  The  railroad  will  answer 
to  deliver  legislators  at  Albany,  although  which 
"  side  up"  is  a  little  uncertain.  But  the  traveller  who 
loves  the  law  of  beauty  and  pursues  pleasure,  will 
take  the  steamer  and  secure  silence,  cleanliness,  suf- 
ficient speed,  and  an  unencumbered  enjoyment  of 
the  landscape. 

If  the  trains  are  as  thronged  as  the  boats,  they  do 
well.  It  was  curious  to  set  forth  upon  a  river-excur- 
sion, surrounded  by  hundreds  bent  upon  similar  sum- 
mer pleasures,  and  yet  see  no  red  hand-book  and  no 
state-travelling  carriage  upon  the  forward  deck,  with 
a  state-travelling  countenance  of  an  English  milord 
on  the  inside,  and  the  ruddy,  round  cheeks  of  state- 
travelling  Abigails,  in  the  rumble  behind.  These  are 


14  LOTUS-EATING. 

Rhenish  reminiscences.  But  they  are  as  much  part 
of  a  journey  up  the  Rhine  as  Drachenfels  or  St. 
Goar. 

John  Bull,  upon  his  travels,  is  an  old  joke,  as  well 
to  himself  as  others  ;  and  the  amusement  is  never 
exhausted.  Tet  he  is  the  boldest  and  best  of  travel- 
lers. He  carries  bottled  ale  to  Nineveh,  and  black 
tea  to  the  top  of  Mont  Blanc,  and  haunts  Norwegian 
rivers  with  the  latest  improved  angling  "  flies  ;"  but 
he  carries  integrity,  heroism,  and  intelligence,  also. 
His  patriotism  amounts  to  prejudice  ;  yet,  if  there  is 
any  cosmopolitan,  it  is  John  Bull.  He  takes  pride, 
indeed,  in  asserting  his  prejudices,  and  insisting 
upon  his  black  tea  everywhere  and  in  all  societies. 
But  his  sublime  skepticism  of  any  excellence  out  of 
England  is  pleasanter  than  our  crude  mixture  of 
boastfulness  and  subserviency.  It  was  remarkable 
during  the  revolutions  of  1848,  in  Europe,  that  there 
were  no  monarchists  so  absolute  as  the  Americans. 
They  declared,  almost  to  a  man,  that  Europe  was  not 
fit  for  republicanism.  As  if  time  would  ripen  re- 
publics from  despotism,  so  that,  like  mellow  pears, 
they  would  fall  off  without  any  confusion ;  or  as  if  it 
were  the  habit  of  kings  to  educate  their  subjects  to 
dispense  with  royalty. 

But  it  is  still  very  amusing  to  see  how  the  English 
patronize  the  continent.  They  ascend  the  Rhine  im- 


THE    HUDSON    AND    THE    RHINE.  15 

perturbably.  They  evidently  feel  that  they  are  con- 
ferring much  more  honor  upon  the  landscape  by 
looking  at  it,  than  ever  the  landscape  can  give  them 
pleasure.  This  annual  overflow  of  the  continent  with 
Cockneys  is  the  point  of  Thackeray's  "  Kickleburys 
on  the  Rhine" — a  picture  whose  breadth  is  hardly 
broader  than  the  reality,  and  which  requires  you  to 
be  a  traveller  fully  to  enjoy. 

This  was  the  pith  of  my  chat  with  Willow  as  we 
sped  along  under  the  Palisades,  and  threaded  the 
Highlands. 

Of  course  these  comparisons  soon  led  to  the  grand 
question  which  usually  consumes  the  three  hours 
from  Murray-street  to  West  Point — the  comparative 
claims  of  interest  in  the  rivers  themselves. 

The  first  day  upon  the  Rhine  is  an  epoch  in  the 
traveller's  memory.  I  came  out  of  the  Tyrol  through 
Southern  Germany  to  Heidelberg,  and  on  a  brilliant 
July  morning  took  the  steamer  at  Mayence  for  Bop- 
part,  a  few  miles  above  Coblentz,  and  not  far  below 
St.  Goar.  It  was  a  soft,  windless  day.  I  lay  in  the 
very  bow  of  the  boat,  with  a  Scotch  boy  going  home 
for  the  summer  from  his  school  in  Zurich.  All  day 
he  buzzed  in  my  ears  stories  of  Switzerland  and 
Scotland,  and  through  his  words  I  saw  the  misty  and 
snowy  grandeur  of  each.  Our  way  was  straight  over 
the  gleaming  river,  by  the  open  spaces  of  Nassau 


16  LOTUS-EATING. 

and  the  sunny  slopes  of  the  vineyards  of  the  Schloss 
Johannisberger,  through  the  narrow  pass  of  Bingen, 
where  the  Highlands  of  the  Rhine  begin, — and  under 
the  Eudesheimer  vines  and  the  little  castles,  it  still 
wound  onward,  every  mile  revealing  the  picture 
which  fancy  had  so  plainly  seen,  until  in  the  late 
afternoon  I  stepped  ashore  at  Boppart. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  river  were  the  ruins  of 
the  twin  castles  of  "The  Brothers,"  which  every 
reader  of  Bulwer's  Pilgrims  of  the  Rhine  remembers, 
and  crossing  in  a  small  boat  at  twilight,  we  climbed 
the  conical  hills  and  rambled  and  stumbled  by  moon- 
light among  the  ruins.  The  feeling  of  that  evening 
was  of  the  nameless  sadness  which  is  always  born  of 
moonlight  in  spots  of  romantic  association.  Yet  it 
would  not  be  possible  to  experience  precisely  the 
same  thing  upon  any  other  than  that  river.  The 
Rhine  has  its  own  character,  its  own  romance  ;  and 
Uhland's  ballad  with  which  I  accompanied  the  slow 
dip  of  the  oars,  as  at  midnight  we  rowed  homewards, 
is  the  music  and  the  meaning  of  the  Rhine. 

Many  a  year  is  in  its  grave, 
Since  I  crossed  the  restless  wave, 
And  the  evening,  fair  as  ever, 
Shines  on  ruin,  rock,  and  river. 

Then,  in  this  same  boat,  beside, 
Sat  two  comrades,  old  and  tried ; 


THE    HUDSON    AND    THE    EHINE.  17 

One  with  all  a  father's  truth, 
One  with  all  the  fire  of  youth. 

One  on  earth  in  silence  wrought, 
And  his  grave  in  silence  sought, 
But  the  younger,  brighter  form, 
Passed  in  battle  and  in  storm. 

So  whene'er  I  turn  my  eye 

Back  upon  the  days  gone  by, 

Saddening  thoughts  of  friends  come  o'er  me, 

Friends,  who  closed  their  course  before  me. 

Yet  what  binds  us  friend  to  friend 
But  that  soul  with  soul  can  blend  7 
Soul-like  were  those  hours  of  yore 
Let  us  walk  in  soul  once  more ! 

Take,  0  boatman,  thrice  thy  fee : 

Take,  I  give  it  willingly, 

For,  invisible  to  thee, 

Spirits  twain  have  crossed  with  me. 

A  few  evenings  afterward  I  was  standing  with  a 
fellow-countryman  upon  the  terrace  of  the  castle  of 
Heidelberg,  looking  out  toward  the  glorious  opening 
of  the  Neckar  valley  upon  the  plain  of  the  Rhine, 
and  was  severely  taken  to  task  by  him  for  my  indis- 
creet Ehenish  raptures  and  absolute  light-speaking 
of  the  Hudson. 

"  Of  course.you  don't  prefer  the  Rhine !"  exclaimed 
my  friend  with  patriotic  ire. 

I  contemplated  the  height  of  the  terrace  from  the 
ground,  and  accommodated  my  answer  to  it. 

"  Yes  !  c  for  this  night  only'  I  think  I  do.     But  I 


18  LOTUS-EATING. 

have  no  doubt  I  shall  sleep  it  off.     I  am  sure  I  shall 
be  better  in  the  morning." 

<:  Strange  words  they  seemed  of  slight  and  scorn, 

My  true-love  sighed  for  sorrow, 

And  looked  me  in  the  face,  to  think 

I  thus  could  speak  of  Yarrow." 

I  did  not  sleep  it  off,  however,  that  night,  at  least, 
for  a  day  or  two  afterward  I  returned  to  the  Rhine, 
and  in  my  friend's  absence  carried  the  question  clear 
against  the  Hudson. 

The  difference  between  the  rivers  is  that  of  the 
countries.  The  Rhine  is  a  narrow  belt  of  turbid 
water  winding  among  the  vineyards  that  wall  it  upon 
each  side.  In  its  beautiful  reach  between  Bingen 
and  Bonn,  the  only  beautiful  part  of  the  river,  except 
near  Lake  Constance,  it  has  no  shores  but  vineyarded 
hillsides,  and  occasionally  a  narrow  grain  field  in 
front  of  them.  There  are  no  trees,  no  varieties  of 
outline,  and  the  vines,  regularly  planted  and  kept 
short  for  wine,  not  left  to  luxuriate  at  length,  for 
beauty,  are  a  little  formal  in  their  impression.  The 
castles — the  want  of  which  is  so  lamented  upon  the 
Hudson  shores — are  not  imposing,  but  romantic. 
They  are  rather  small  and  toy-like,  and  stand  like 
small  sentries  upon  small  hills  commanding  the  en- 
trances to  small  valleys. 

But  they  are  interesting  enough  to  make  their  own 


THE    HUDSON    AND    THE    KHINE.  19 

traditions,  even  better  than  those  you  read  in  Mur- 
ray's red-book :  and  the  mass  of  travellers  who  merely 
pass  in  the  steamers,  when  the  white  glare  of  noon 
hardens  the  hills,  as  if  they  were  sullen,  and  would 
not  reveal  their  charms  to  a  hasty  stare,  can  have 
but  faint  idea  of  the  tranquil  and  romantic  beauty 
of  the  river. 

A  river  is  the  coyest  of  friends.  You  must  love  it 
and  live  with  it  before  you  can  know  it. 

"And  you  must  love  him,  ere  to  you 
He  will  seem  worthy  of  your  love." 

The  Khine,  after  all,  is  the  theme  and  mistress  of 
romance  and  song — although  to  many  of  us,  that 
fame  be  only  traditional.  The  Ehine  songs,  both 
those  which  directly  celebrate  its  beauty,  and  those 
which  are  ballads  of  life  upon  its  banks,  are  among 
the  most  sonorous  in  the  songful  German  literature. 

It  is  the  Ehine  wine,  pure  Ehenish,  the  blood  of 
the  life  that  blooms  along  these  monotonous  hillsides, 
which  is  the  wine  poetic,  that  routs  all  the  temper- 
ance societies.  The  foliage  of  the  vine  itself  is  fair 
and  lustrous.  It  wreathes  the  hot  hills  with  a  gor- 
geous garland,  and  makes  the  day  upon  the  Ehine  a 
festival.  Then  the  old  crumbling  castles,  if  vague  in 
fame,  are  so  much  the  more  suggestive,  and  from  one 
shattered  buttress  to  another,  miles  away  on  a  dis- 


20  LOTUS-EATING. 

tant  hilltop,  the  gay  vine-garland  sweeps,  alive  now, 
as  much  as  ever,  and  by  the  vivid  contrast  softens 
the  suggestion  and  deepens  the  delight. 

Near  St.  Goar  you  glide  under  the  rock  of  the 
Lorelei.  Henry  Heine  in  one  of  his  tender  songs 
relates  its  mournful  tradition,  which  is  the  most 
beautiful  and  wildest  of  the  Ehine.  Willow  and 
Xtopher  and  I  sing  it  nightly  as  we  lie  on  the  lawn 
here,  watching  the  moonlight  streaming  upon  the 
river,  and  to-day  Xtopher  has  translated  it  without 
letting  the  aroma  escape.  The  first  line  of  the  last 
verse  is  hard  to  render.  The  verb  in  German  ex- 
presses the  river  embracing  the  boat  and  sailor,  like 
a  serpent  with  its  folds. 

I  know  not  what  it  presages, 

This  heart  with  sadness  fraught, 
'T  is  a  tale  of  the  olden  ages, 

That  will  not  from  my  thought. 

The  air  grows  cool  and  darkles, 

The  Rhine  flows  calmly  on, 
The  mountain  summit  sparkles 

In  the  light  of  the  setting  sun. 

There  sits  in  soft  reclining 

A  maiden  wondrous  fair, 
With  golden  raiment  shining, 

And  combing  her  golden  hair. 

With  a  comb  of  gold  she  combs  it, 

And  combing,  low  singeth  she, 
A  song  of  a  strange,  sweet  sadness, 

A  wonderful  melody. 


THE    HUDSON    AND    THE    RHINE.  21 

The  sailor  shudders  as  o'er  him, 

The  strain  comes  floating  by, 
He  sees  not  the  cliffs  before  him, 

He  only  looks  on  high. 

Ah!  round  him  the  dark  waves  flinging 
Their  arms,  draw  him  slowly  down, — 

And  this  with  her  wild,  sweet  singing 
The  Lorelei  has  done. 


Mendelssohn  was  to  have  written  an  opera  upon 
this  story  and  had  already  commenced  it,  but  the 
king  of  Prussia,  who  is  fond  of  the  classics,  ordered 
the  composer,  who  was  the  royal  director  of  music, 
to  write  an  overture  and  chorusses  for  the  Antigone. 
We  have  lost  in  that  opera  the  companion  of  Don 
Giovanni ;  in  a  different  kind,  of  course,  for  Mozart 
was  all  melody,  and  Mendelssohn  had  only  rhythm. 
In  his  music  the  melody  is  like  a  faint  perfume  in  a 
dreamy  south  wind.  How  long  must  we  wait  for 
another  Fne-ear  to  detect  and  interpret  those  weird 
melodies  of  the  Lorelei  ? 

These  are  the  genuine  delights  of  the  Khine. 
They  are  those  of  romantic  association  and  sug- 
gestion. They  are  those  which  are  only  possible  in 
an  old  and  storied  country.  It  is  not  what  you  see 
there,  but  what  you  feel  through  what  you  see,  that 
charms  you.  The  wild  grape  in  our  woods  is  pleas- 
ant from  the  association  with  the  Rhenish  vineyards, 
and  they  in  turn  from  their  association  with  the  glory 


22  LOTUS-EATING. 

of  the  grape  in  all  literature  and  tradition.  The 
Ehine  is  a  lyric,  or  a  ballad. 

Avoid  the  steamer,  if  you  can,  and  in  some  coun- 
try market-boat  float  at  evening  or  morning  along 
its  shores,  following  the  wildest  whim  of  fancy,  with 
Uhland  in  one  pocket  and  a  flasclie  of  Eiidesheimer 
in  the  other,  dozing  away  the  noon  in  the  coolest 
corner  of  some  old  ruin,  and  dreaming  of  Ariadne  as 
you  drift,  sighing,  beneath  the  moonlighted  vine- 
yards. Then  you,  too,  will  exasperate  some  chance 
friend  at  Heidelberg,  and  believe  in  the  Ehine,  for 
that  night  only. 

I  know  that  romance  is  in  the  poet's  heart,  and 
not  in  the  outward  forms  he  sees.  But  there  is  a 
technical  material  of  romance — the  moonlight,  a 
ruin,  an  Italian  girl,  for  instance — which  is  useful  in 
begetting  a  romantic  mood  of  mind,  as  a  quotation 
will  often  suggest  verses  that  haunt  you  all  day  long. 
And  it  is  in  this  material  that  the  Ehine  is  so  rich. 

The  Hudson,  however,  is  larger  and  grander.  It 
is  not  to  be  devoured  in  detail.  No  region  without 
association,  is,  except  by  science.  But  its  spacious 
and  stately  character,  its  varied  and  magnificent 
outline,  from  the  Palisades  to  the  Catskill,  are  as 
epical  as  the  loveliness  of  the  Ehine  is  lyrical.  The 
Hudson  implies  a  continent  behind.  For  vineyards 
it  has  forests.  For  a  belt  of  water,  a  majestic  stream. 


THE    HUDSON    AND    THE    RHINE. 


23 


For  graceful  and  grain-goldeired  heights  it  has  impos- 
ing mountains.  There  is  no  littleness  about  the  Hud- 
son, but  there  is  in  the  Rhine.  Here  every  thing  is 
boldly  touched.  What  lucid  and  penetrant  lights, 
what  broad  and  sober  shadows !  The  river  moistens 
the  feet,  and  the  clouds  anoint  the  heads,  of  regal 
hills.  The  Danube  has,  in  parts,  glimpses  of  such 
grandeur.  The  Elbe  has  sometimes  such  delicately 
pencilled  effects.  But  no  European  river  is  so  lordly 
in  its  bearing,  none  flows  in  such  state  to  the  sea. 

Of  all  our  rivers  that  I  know,  the  Hudson,  with 
this  grandeur,  has  the  most  exquisite  episodes.  Its 
morning  and  evening  reaches  are  like  the  lakes 
of  dreams.  Looking  from  this  garden,  at  twilight, 
toward  the  huge  hills,  enameled 
with  soft  dark- 
ness, that  guard 
the  entrance  of 
the  Highlands, 
nearWestPoint, 
I  "  would  be  a 
merman  bold," 
to  float  on  the 
last  ray  through 
that  mysterious 
gate  to  the  soft- 


24  LOTUS-EATING. 

est  shadow  in  Cro'  Nest,  where,  if  I  were  a  merman 
bold,  I  should  know  the  culprit  fay  was  sleeping. 
Out  of  that  dim  portal  glide  the  white  sails  of  sloops, 
like  spectres :  they  loiter  languidly  along  the  bases 
of  the  hills,  as  the  evening  breeze  runs  after  them, 
enamored,  and  they  fly,  taking  my  fascinated  eyes 
captive,  far  and  far  away,  until  they  glimmer  like 
ghosts  and  strand  my  sight  upon  the  distance. 

These  tranquil  evening  reveries  are  the  seed  of 
such  beautiful  and-  characteristic  harvests  as  the 
Hudson  tales  of  the  Sketch  Book  and  Knickerbock- 
er's History.  And  rubbing  those  golden  grains  upon 
his  eyes,  Darley  has  so  well  perceived  the  spirit  of 
the  river,  that  in  a  few  simple  forms,  in  the  vignette 
of  his  illustrations  of  Kip  Van  Winkle,  he  has  seized 
its  suggestion  and  made  it  visible.  Nor  will  any 
lover  of  the  Hudson  forget  its  poet,  Joseph  Hodman 
Drake,  who  in  his  "  Culprit  Fay,"  shows  that  the 
spirits  of  romance  and  beauty  haunt  every  spot  upon 
which  falls  the  poetic  eye.  If  a  man  would  touch 
the  extremes  of  experience  in  a  single  day,  I  know 
not  how  it  could  be  better  done,  than  by  stepping 
upon  a  steamer,  after  a  long  bustling  morning  in 
Wall-street,  and  reading  the  "  Culprit  Fay"  by 
moonlight  upon  the  piazza  of  the  hotel  at  West  Point, 
looking  up  the  river  to  Cro'  Nest. 

It  was  a  happy  fortune  for  the  beauty  of  the  river 


THE    HUDSON    AND    THE    KHINE.  25 

that  steam  did  not  drive  away  the  sails.  It  was 
feared  that  the  steamers  would  carry  all  the  freight, 
and  so  bereave  the  river  of  the  characteristic  and 
picturesque  life  of  the  white-sailed  sloops.  But  econ- 
omy was  on  the  side  of  beauty  this  time,  and  it  was 
found  cheaper  to  carry  heavy  freights  by  sail,  as  of 
old.  So  the  sloops  doze  and  dream  along,  very 
beautiful  to  behold  from  the  banks,  and  sometimes, 
awakened  as  they  enter  the  Highlands  by  a  sudden 
stoop  from  some  saucy  gust  coquetting  with  the  hills, 
they  bend  and  dip,  and  come  crowding  toward  us 
through  the  grim  mountain  gate,  like  a  troop  of 
white-winged  pilgrims  fluttering  and  flying  from  the 
Castle  of  Giant  Despair. 

You  see  I  have  heard  the  Hudson  Syrens:  per- 
haps some  faint,  far-off  strain  of  that  lullaby  of 
silence  that  soothed  old  Eip  to  his  mountain  nap. 
And  while  I  smell  Florida  and  the  Tropics,  as  I  sit 
under  the  branching  magnolia,  it  goes  clear  and 
clean  against  the  Rhine.  But  when,  leaving  the 
garden,  and  sitting  under  the  foliaged  trellises  of  the 
piazza,  we  see  the  moon  rise  over  the  opposite  moun- 
tains— the  ghost  of  the  summer  day — drawing  the 
outline  of  the  Warwick  vase  more  delicately  in 
shadow  upon  the  sward  than  ever  the  skilful  artist 
carved  it  in  marble,  then  a  glimpse  of  Grecian 
beauty  penetrates  and  purifies  the  night ;  while, 

B 


26  LOTUS-EATING. 

within  doors,  Willow's  hands  dream  upon  the  keys 
of  the  piano,  and  singing,  sad  and  sweet  enough  to 
silence  the  Lorelei,  completes  the  discomfiture  of  the 
Rhine. 

In  the  moonlight  and  the  music  Xtopher  and  I  are 
but 

"  Such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of," 
until 

"From  tower  on  tree-top  high, 

The  sentry  elf  his  call  has  made, 
A  streak  is  in  the  eastern  sky, 

Shapes  of  moonlight !   flit  and  fade ! 
The  hill-tops  gleam  in  morning's  spring, 
The  sky-lark  shakes  his  dappled  wing, 
The  day-glimpse  glimmers  on  the  lawn, 
The  cock  has  crowed  and  the  fays  are  gone !" 


C  A  T  S  K  I  L  L, 


II. 


JULY.     > 
THE  MOUNTAIN  HOUSE.  J 

HE  "  New  World"  is  a  filagree 
frame-work  of  white  wood  sur- 
rounding a  huge  engine,  which  is 
much  too  conspicuous.  I  am 
speaking,  by-the-by,  of  the 
Hudson  steamer ;  and  yet, 
perhaps,  the  symbol  holds 
for  the  characteristic  expression  of  the  nation.  For 
just  so  flimsy  and  overfine  are  our  social  arrange- 
ments, our  peculiarities  of  manner  and  dress,  and 
just  so  prominent  and  evident  is  the  homely  practical 
genius  that  carries  us  forward,  with  steam-speed, 
through  the  sloop-sluggishness  of  our  compeers. 

A  sharp-faced,  thought-furrowed,  hard-handed 
American,  with  his  anxious  eye  and  sallow  complex- 
ion, his  nervous  motion  and  concentrated  expression, 
and  withal,  accoutred  for  travelling  in  blue  coat 
with  gilt  buttons,  dark  pantaloons,  patent  leather 


30  LOTUS-EATING. 

boots,  and  silk  vest  hung  with  charms,  chains,  and 
bits  of  metal,  as  if  the  Indian  love  of  lustre  lingered 
in  the  Yankee,  is  not  unlike  one  of  these  steamers, 
whose  machinery,  driving  it  along,  jars  the  cut  glass 
and  the  choice  centre-tables  and  crimson-covered 
lounges,  and  with  a  like  accelerated  impetus,  would 
shiver  the  filagree  into  splinters. 

Tet  for  all  this  the  "  New  World"  is  a  very  pleas- 
ant place.  It  has  a  light,  airy,  open  and  clean  deck, 
whence  you  may  spy  the  shyest  nook  of  scenery  upon 
the  banks,  and  a  spacious  cabin,  where  you  do  not 
dine  at  a  huge  table,  with  eager  men  plunging  their 
forks  into  dishes  before  you,  and  their  elbows  into 
your  sides,  but  quietly  and  pleasantly  as  at  a  Parisian 
caftS.  What  an  appalling  ordeal  an  American  table 
d'hQte  is !  What  a  chaos  of  pickles,  puddings  and 
meats !  and  each  man  plunging  through  every  thing 
as  if  he  and  the  steamer  were  racing  for  victory. 
The  waiters,  usually  one  third  the  necessary  num- 
ber, rush  up  and  down  the  rear  of  the  benches,  and 
cascades  of  gravies  and  sauces  drip  ominously  along 
their  wake.  It  is  the  seed-time  of  dyspepsia,  and 
Dickens  in  that  anti- American  novel,  which  none  of 
us  can  read  without  feeling  its  injustice,  has  yet  de- 
scribed, only  too  well,  an  American  ordinary. 

Who  can  wonder  that  we  are  lantern-jawed,  lean, 
sickly  and  serious  of  aspect,  when  he  has  dined  on  a 


CATSKILL.  31 

steamer  or  at  a  great  business  hotel?  We  laugh 
very'loftily  at  the  Rhine  dinners  in  which  the  pud- 
ding and  fish  meet  in  the  middle  of  the  courses. 
But  a  Ehine  dinner  upon  the  open,  upper  deck  of  the 
steamer,  is  quiet  and  orderly  and  inoffensive,  while 
one  of  our  gregarious  repasts  must  needs  offend  every 
man  who  has  some  regard  for  proprieties  and  some 
self-respect. 

—And  Catskill? 

Yes,  we  are  rapidly  approaching,  even  while  we 
sit  on  deck  and  our  eyes  slide  along  the  gentle  green 
banks,  as  we  meditate  American  manners  and  the 
extremes  that  meet  in  our  characteristics.  Beyond 
Poughkeepsie  a  train  darts  along  the  shore,  rattling 
over  the  stones  on  the  water's  edge,  and  rolling  with 
muffled  roar  behind  the  cuts  and  among  the  heavy 
foliage.  So  nearly  matched  is  our  speed,  that  until 
the  locomotive  ran  beside  us,  I  did  not  know  how 
rapid  was  our  silent  movement.  But  there  is  heat 
and  bustle  and  dust  in  the  nervous  little  train,  which 
winds  along,  like  a  jointed  reptile,  while  with  our 
stately  steamer  there  is  silence,  and  the  cool,  con- 
stant patter  of  the  few  drops,  where  our  sharp  prow 
cuts  the  river. 

A  little  above  Poughkeepsie  the  river  bends,  and 
the  finest  point  is  gained.  It  is  a  foreground  of  cul- 
tivated and  foliaged  hills  of  great  variety  of  outline, 


32  LOTUS-EATING. 

rising  as  they  recede,  and  ranging,  and  towering  at 
last  along  the  horizon,  in  the  Catskill  mountain^.  It 
was  a  brilliant  day,  and  the  heavy,  rounding  clouds 
piled  in  folds  along  the  line  of  the  hills — taking,  at 
length,  precisely  their  own  hue,  and  so  walling  up 
the  earth  with  a  sombre,  vaporous  rampart,  such  as 
Titans  and  fallen  angels  storm.  As  we  glided 
nearer,  keen  flashes  darted  from  the  wall  of  cloud, 
and  as  if  riven  and  rent  with  its  sharpness,  the  heavy 
masses  rolled  asunder;  then  more  heavily  piled 
themselves  in  dense  darkness,  fold  overlying  fold, 
while  the  startled  wind  changed,  and  rushed  down 
the  river,  chilled,  and  breathing  cold  before  the  storm. 

No  longer  a  wall,  but  a  swiftly  advancing  and  de- 
vastating power,  the  storm  threw  up  pile  upon  pile 
of  jagged  blackness  into  the  clear,  tender  blue  of  the 
afternoon,  and  there  was  a  wail  in  the  hurried  gusts 
that  swept  past  us  and  over  us,  and  the  river  curled 
more  and  more  into  sudden  waves,  which  were  foam- 
tipped,  and  scattered  spray. 

We  were  now  abreast  of  the  mountains,  and  far 
behind  them  the  storm  had  burst.  Down  the  vast 
ravines  that  opened  outward  toward  the  river,  I  saw 
the  first  softness  of  the  shower  skimming  along  the 
distant  hillsides,  moister  and  grayer,  until  they  were 
merged  in  mist.  Deep  into  those  solemn  mountain 
forests  leaped  the  lightning,  and  the  echo  of  its 


OATSKILL. 


wrathful  roar  surged  and  boomed  among  the  hills, 
and  dashed  far  up  the  cliffs  and  dark  hemlock  slopes, 
and  crashed  over  the  gurgling  brooks,  where  was 
none  to  hear  but  the  trees  and  the  streams,  and  they 
were  undismayed,  and  in  the  shuddering  breeze  of  the 
pauses  the  trees  rustled  and  whispered  to  the  streams, 
and  the  streams  laughed  to  themselves — the  strange, 
sweet,  mystical  laughter  that  Undine  laughed. 

"They  roll  their  nine-pins  still,  among  the  Cats- 
kill,"  said  Olde. 

"  And  there  's  a  ten-strike,"  interposed  Swans- 
downe,  as  a  mighty  bolt  burst  among  the  hills,  but 
still  toward  the  inner  valleys,  for  the  slope  toward 
the  river  yet  stood  in  cold,  dark,  purple  distinctness. 

The  breeze  was  cool  and  strong  as  we  landed  at 
B* 


34  LOTUS-EATING. 

Catskill.  We  were  huddled  ashore  rapidly,  the 
board  was  pulled  in,  and  the  "  New  World"  disap- 
peared. I  proposed  riding  up  to  the  Mountain  House 
on  the  outside  of  the  coach,  but  Olde  smiled  and 
said,  "  I  shall  go  inside." 

Now  Olde  loves  scenery  as  well  as  any  man,  poet 
or  painter,  but  he  holds  that  a  drenching  rain  de- 
stroys both  the  beauty  of  the  scene  and  the  capacity 
for  enjoyment  of  the  seer,  and  while  I  stood  with  my 
hand  upon  the  door,  my  common  sense  thoroughly 
convinced,  as  well  by  his  action  as  by  his  words,  but 
my  carnal  heart  lusting  after  the  loveliness  of  the 
cloud-crowned  and  shower-veiled  mountains,  there 
came  another  ten-strike  that  suddenly  shook  a  cloud 
to  pieces  over  our  heads  and  down  it  came. 

"  I  think  I  shall  go  inside,  too,"  said  I,  as  I  stum- 
bled up  the  steps  and  closed  the  door. 

During  the  first  eight  miles  of  the  inland  drive 
toward  the  Mountain  House,  I  enjoyed  the  prospect 
of  six  travellers,  four  stained  leather  curtains,  and 
the  two  wooden  windows  of  the  door.  It  was  not 
cool  inside  the  coach,  but  without,  the  wind  was  in 
high  frolic  with  the  rain,  and  through  the  slightest 
crevice  the  wily  witch  dashed  us  with  her  missiles, 
cold  and  very  wet.  Then  the  showers  swept  along  a 
little,  and  we  threw  up  the  curtains  and  breathed 
fresh  air,  and  about  three  miles  from  the  Mountain 


CATSKILL.  35 

House,  where  the  steep  ascent  commences,  Olde  and 
Swansdowne  and  I  jumped  out  of  the  stage  and 
walked.  The  road  is  very  firmly  built,  and  is  fortu- 
nate in  its  material  of  a  slaty  rock,  and  in  the  luxu- 
riance of  foliage,  for  the  tangled  tree-roots  hold  the 
soil  together. 

The  road  climbs  at  first  in  easy  zigzags,  and  pres- 
ently pushes  straight  on  through  the  woods,  and 
upon  the  side  of  a  steep  ravine ;  the  level-branched 
foliage  sheering  regularly  down,  sheeting  the  moun- 
tain side  with  leafy  terraces.  Between  the  trunks 
and  down  the  gorges  we  looked  over  a  wide  but 
mountainous  landscape,  and  as  we  ascended,  the  air 
became  more  invigorating  with  the  greater  height 
and  the  coolness  of  the  shower.  Two  hours  before 
sunset  we  stood  upon  the  plateau  before  the  Moun- 
tain House,  2,800  feet  above  the  sea. 

There  is  a  fine  sense  of  height  there,  but  all  moun- 
tain views  over  a  plain  are  alike.  You  stand  on  the 
piazza  of  the  Mountain  House  and  look  directly  down 
into  the  valley  of  the  Hudson,  with  only  a  foreground, 
deep  beneath  you,  of  a  lower  layer  than  that  on 
which  you  stand,  with  its  precipice  of  pine  and  hem- 
lock. The  rest  stretches  then,  a  smooth  surface  to 
the  eye,  but  hilly  enough  to  the  feet,  when  you  are 
there,  to  an  unconfined  horizon  at  the  north  and 
south,  and  easterly  to  the  Berkshire  hills. 


36  LOTUS-EATING. 

Through  this  expanse  lies  the  Hudson,  not  very 
sinuous,  but  a  line  of  light  dividing  the  plain.  In 
the  vague  twilight  atmosphere  it  was  very  effective. 
Sometimes  the  mist  blotted  out  individual  outlines, 
and  the  whole  scene  was  but  a  silver-gray  abyss, 
and  the  hither  line  of  the  river  was  the  horizon, 
and  the  stream  itself  a  white  gleam  of  sky  beyond. 
Then  the  distance  and  the  foreground  were  mingled 
in  the  haze,  a  shining  opaque  veil,  wherein  the 
river  was  a  rent,  through  which  beamed  a  remote 
brightness.  Or  the  vapors  clustered  toward  the 
south  and  the  stream  flowed  into  them,  flashing 
and  far,  as  into  a  terrene  cloud-land.  All  the  coun- 
try was  chequered  with  yellow  patches  of  ripe  grain, 
and  marked  faintly  with  walls  and  fences,  and 
looked  rather  a  vast  domain  than  a  mountain-ruled 
landscape. 

Whoever  is  familiar  with  mountain  scenery  will 
know  what  to  anticipate  in  the  Catskill  view.  The 
whole  thing  is  graceful  and  generous,  but  not  sub- 
lime. Tour  genuine  mountaineer  (which  I  am  not) 
shrugs  his  shoulder  at  the  shoulders  of  mountains 
which  soar  thousands  of  feet  above  him  and  are  still 
shaggy  with  forest.  He  draws  a  long  breath  over 
the  spacious  plain,  but  he  feels  the  want  of  that  true 
mountain  sublimity,  the  presence  of  lonely  snow- 
peaks. 


CATSKILL*  37 

And  as  we  always  require  in  scenery  of  a  similar 
class,  similar  emotions,  there  is  necessarily  a  little 
disappointment  in  the  Catskill.  They  are  hills  rather 
than  mountains.  But,  as  they  have  the  fame  of 
mountains,  you  are  recalling  your  Alpine  impres- 
sions, all  the  way  up.  It  is  not  very  wise,  perhaps, 
but  it  is  very  natural  and  rather  unavoidable.  Yet, 
when  the  night  falls,  the  silence  and  coolness  of  your 
lofty  home,  impart  the  genuine  mountain  tone  to 
your  thoughts.  Then  you  begin  to  acknowledge  the 
family  resemblance,  and  to  remember  Switzerland. 

When  I  was  on  the  Faulhorn,  the  highest  point 
in  Europe  upon  which  a  dwelling-house  is  placed, 
and  that  inhabited  for  three  months  only  in  the  year, 
I  stepped  out  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  and  as  I 
looked  across  the  valley  of  Grindelwald  and  saw  the 
snow-fields  and  ice-precipices  of  all  the  Horns — 
never  trodden  and  never  to  be  trodden  by  man — 
shining  cold  in  the  moonlight,  my  heart  stood  still 
as  I  felt  that  those  awful  peaks  and  I  were  alone  in 
the  solemn  solitude.  Then  I  felt  the  significance  of 
Switzerland,  and  knew  the  sublimity  of  mountains 

And   do    you   remember,  said  Olde,   how  deli-  / 
cately  the  dawn  touched  those  summits  with  cool, 
bright  fingers,  and  how  their  austerity  burned  and 
blushed  under  that  caressing,  until  the  sunrise  over- 
whelmed them  with  rosy  flame,  and  they  flashed 


38  LOTUS-EATING. 

perfect  day  far  over  Switzerland ;  and  hours  after- 
ward, when  day  was  old  upon  the  mountain  tops, 
how  gentlemen-travellers  turned  in  their  beds  in  the 
valley  inns,  and  said,  "  Hallo,  Tom,  the  sun  is 
rising  ?" 

The  Mountain  House  is  really  unceremonious. 
You  are  not  required  to  appear  at  dinner  in  ball 
costume,  and  if  you  choose,  you  may  scramble  to  the 
Falls  in  cowhide  boots  and  not  in  varnished  pumps. 
The  house  has  a  long  and  not  ill-proportioned  Corin- 
thian colonnade,  wooden  of  course,  and  glaring  white. 
The  last  point,  however,  is  a  satisfaction  from  below, 
for  its  vivid  contrast  with  the  dark  green  forest  re- 
veals the  house  from  a  great  distance  upon  the  river. 
The  table  is  well  supplied,  but  Olde  and  Swansdowne 
were  forced  to  throw  themselves  upon  the  compassion 
of  the  chambermaid,  (I  would  s^jFemme-de-Chambre, 
if  a  single  eye,  slopping  shoes,  and  a  thick,  cotton 
handkerchief  pinned  night-cap-wise  over  the  head, 
would  possibly  allow  that  suggestive  word,)  and  to 
submit  that  a  towel  of  the  magnitude  of  a  small 
mouchoir^  (they  did  not  say  mouchoir?)  was  not  large 
allowance  for  two  full-grown  men.  The  dame's  an- 
swer had  gravity  and  instance. 

"  Gentlemen,  how  can  I  give  you  what  we  have 
not?-" 

A  written  placard  around  the  house  announced 


CATSKILL.  39 

that  dancing  music  could  be  had  at  the  bar.  But 
none  wished  to  polk — and  how  music  could  be  made 
in  that  parlor,  which  seemed  to  have  been  dislocated 
by  some  tempestuous  mountain  ague,  remains  a  mys- 
tery to  me.  There  are  eight  windows,  and  none  of 
them  opposite  to  any  of  the  others ;  folding-doors 
which  have  gone  down  the  side  of  the  room  in  some 
wild  architectural  dance,  and  have  never  returned, 
and  a  row  of  small  columns  stretching  in  an  inde- 
pendent line  across  the  room,  quite  irrespective  of 
the  middle.  It  is  a  dangerous  parlor  for  a  nervous 
man. 

We  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  precipice,  looking  off 
into  the  black  abyss  of  night.  Swansdowne  told  wild 
tales  of  crazy  men  in  lonely  nooks  of  Scotland,  and 
Olde  talked  of  Italy.  They  were  pleasant  days,  he 
said,  which  shall  return  no  more. 

"  My  eyes  are  full  of  childish  tears, 

My  heart  is  idly  stirred, 
For  the  same  sound  is  in  my  ears, 
That  in  those  days  I  heard. 

"  Thus  fares  it  still  in  our  decay, 

And  yet  the  wiser  mind 
Mourns  less  for  what  age  takes  away 
That  what  it  leaves  behind." 


CATSKILL   FALLS. 


III. 


/alls. 

JULY. 

DID  not  see  the 
sun  rise  from 
the  Catskill. 
Therefore  my 
more  cun- 
ning way 

\would  be  to 
give  you  a 
florid  history 
all  the  sunrises  that  I 
l^have  seen  from  famous 

o 

s,  omitting  mention  of  the 
,ff ^'chills,  yawns,  and,  in  general,  very 
""/;•  ameliorated  admiration  of  such  early 
1  •'  spectacles. 

Quite  unwittingly  I  was  conscious  of 
no  sunrise  that   bright   Sunday  morning 


44  LOTUS-EATING. 

upon  the  Catskill ;  yet  I  was  not  scornful  of  it  but 
only  sleepy. 

Not  scornful,  for  still  flashes  along  the  heights  of 
memory  many  a  Swiss  sunrise.  That  of  the  Kighi, 
for  instance,  with  the  groups  of  well- whiskered  Eng- 
lishmen and  well-booted  Americans,  gathered  upon 
the  Culm,  and  wrapt  in  coats,  cloaks,  blankets,  and 
comforters — as  if  each  had  arisen,  bed  and  all,  and 
had  so  stepped  out  to  enjoy  the  spectacle.  A  wooden 
horn  was  blown,  much  vague  sentiment  was  uttered, 
and  the  exceeding  absurdity  of  the  crowd  interfered 
with  the  grandeur  of  the  moment. 

But  beyond  these  and  above  them  were  the  peaks 
of  the  Mid-Alps,  celestial  snow-fields,  smooth  and 
glittering  as  the  sky,  and  the  rugged  glaciers  sloping 
into  unknown  abysses,  Niagaran  cataracts  frozen  in 
foam  forever.  There  were  lesser  mountains  in  the 
undulating  mass  of  the  panorama,  green  and  grace- 
ful, or  angular  with  sharp  cliifs,  sheering  perpendic- 
ularly away,  or  gently  veering  into  the  glassy  calm- 
ness of  cold  lakes,  in  which  the  night  had  bathed 
and  left  its  blackness.  There  was  the  range  of 
the  Jura,  dusky  and  far,  and  the  faint  flash  of 
the  Aar  in  the  morning  mist,  and  among  these  aw- 
ful mountains,  and  upon  them,  spots  of  fame,  po- 
etic and  patriotic,  each  one  the  home  of  a  thousand 
traditions,  each  the  melody  of  myriad  household 


CATSKILL    FALLS.  45 

songs.  It  was  the  region  of  William  Tell  all  around 
me. 

The  keen,  cool  breath  of  early  morning  smote  me, 
as  with  the  heroic  spirit  of  the  story,  and  the  senti- 
ments and  memories  of  the  spot  brightened  into  sig- 
nificance with  the  increasing  dawn.  And  as  we  stood 
there,  too  shivering  to  be  sentimental — for  the  breath 
which  lives  "with  death  and  morning  on  the  silver 
horns,"  blew  every  feeling  away  that  was  not  gen- 
uine and  fair — far  over  the  hushed  tumult  of  peaks 
which  thronged  to  the  utmost  east,  came  the  sun, 
sowing  those  sublime  snow-fields  with  glorious  day. 
The  light  leaped  from  peak  to  peak,  the  only  thing 
alive,  glad  and  gay,  worthy  to  sport  with  those 
worthy  mates,  until  the  majestic  solemnity  of  the  mo- 
ment yielded  to  the  persuasive  warmth  of  day,  and 
our  hearts  yearned  for  the  valley. 

Do  you  remember  in  Tennyson's  "Princess,"  the 
"  small,  sweet  idyl,"  which  she  read  ? 

Come  down,  0  maid,  from  yonder  mountain  height; 

What  pleasure  lives  in  height,  (the  shepherd  sang,) 

In  height  and  cold,  the  splendor  of  the  hills  1 

But  cease  to  move  so  near  the  heavens,  and  cease 

To  glide  a  sunbeam  by  the  blasted  pine, 

To  sit  a  star  upon  the  sparkling  spire, 

And  come,  for  Love  is  of  the  valley,  come, 

For  Love  is  of  the  valley,  come  thou  down, 

And  find  him  by  the  happy  threshold,  he, 

Or  hand  in  hand  with  plenty  in  the  maize, 

Or  red  with  spurted  purple  of  the  vats, 


46  LOTUS-EATING. 

Or  fox-like  in  the  vine;  nor  cares  to  walk 
With  Death  and  Morning  on  the  Silver  Horns; 
Nor  wilt  thou  snare  him  in  the  white  ravine, 
Nor  find  him  dropt  upon  the  firths  of  ice, 
That  huddling  slant  in  furrow  cloven  falls, 
To  roll  the  torrent  out  of  dusky  doors : 
But  follow:  let  the  torrent  dance  thee  down, 
To  find  him  in  the  valley ;   let  the  wild 
Lean-headed  eagles  yelp  alone,  and  leave 
The  monstrous  ledges  there  to  slope,  and  spill 
Their  thousand  wreaths  of  dangling  water-smoke, 
That  like  a  broken  purpose  waste  in  air: 
So  waste  not  thou:   but  come;  for  all  the  vales 
Await  thee;  azure  pillars  of  the  hearth 
Arise  to  thee;   the  children  call,  and  I 
Thy  shepherd,  pipe,  and  sweet  is  every  sound, 
Sweeter  thy  voice,  but  every  sound  is  sweet; 
Myriads  of  rivulets  hurrying  through  the  lawn, 
The  moan  of  doves  in  immemorial  elms, 
And  murmuring  of  innumerable  bees. 

Remembering  these  things,  when  I  came  down  and 
found  Olde  and  Swansdowne  under  the  Corinthian 
colonnade,  I  did  not  feel  as  if  I  had  seen  nothing, 
although  I  had  lost  the  Catskill  sunrise,  which,  they 
told  me,  was  a  magnificent  effect  of  slanting  light 
over  a  level  floor  of  fleecy  clouds,  much  more  mag- 
nificent, indeed,  than  any  polar  ocean  could  be,  ex- 
cept those  that  poets  see. 

It  was  a  clear,  crystal  morning ;  and  after  break- 
fast those  who  were  disposed,  repaired  to  the  village 
of  Catskill,  twelve  miles  away,  to  church.  I  believe 
there  were  not  very  many.  Some  of  the  rest  of  us 
looked  mountainward.  The  more  distant  hills — for 


CATSKILL    FALLS.  47 

there  are  none  lost  in  mist  so  far  as  to  seem  most 
distant  —  were  sharply  drawn,  purply  cold,  and 
rounded  with  foliage  up  the  sides.  Over  the  sum- 
mit we  went,  and  down  the  purple  glen,  toward  the 
throbbing  heart  of  the  Catskill. 

"  And  on  that  morning  thro'  the  grass, 

And  by  the  steaming  rills, 
We  travelled  merrily  to  pass 
A  day  among  the  hills." 

The  road  to  the  Falls  is  most  unromantically  dis- 
tinguishable. A  coach  load  was  to  follow,  but  we 
scorned  coaches — mighty  mountaineers  that  we  were  1 
and  went  cheerily  along  past  the  lake,  dark  and  cold 
enough  to  have  a  dreary  tradition,  while  the  vibrant, 
liquidly-gurgling  song  of  the  wood-thrush  poured 
through  the  trees,  and  a  solitary,  flaming  golden-rod 
nodded  autumn  to  us  as  we  passed.  It  is  a  walk 
through  the  woods — a  wood-road  to  a  finger-post  that 
says  curtly,  "To  the  Falls;"  and  then  down  into  a 
dell  to  a  very  new  and  very  neat  white  house  and  a 
bar-room,  with  a  balcony  over  the  abyss. 

The  proprietor  of  the  bar-room  is  also  the  genius 
of  the  Fall,  and  drives  a  trade  both  with  his  spirits 
and  his  water.  In  fact,  if  your  romantic  nerves  can 
stand  the  steady  truth,  the  Catskill  Fall  is  turned  on 
to  accommodate  poets  and  parties  of  pleasure. 

The  process  of  "  doing"  the  sight,  for  those  who 


48  LOTUS-EATING. 

are  limited  in  time,  is  very  methodical.  You  leave 
the  hotel  and  drive  in  a  coach  to  the  bar-room.  You 
"  refresh."  You  step  out  upon  the  balcony,  and  look 
into  the  abyss.  The  proprietor  of  the  Fall  informs 
you  that  the  lower  plunge  is  eighty  feet  high.  It  ap- 
pears to  you  to  be  about  ten.  You  laugh  incredu- 
lously— he  smiles  in  return  the  smile  of  a  mens  con- 
scia  recti.  "Would  you  step  down  and  have  the 
water  turned  on?"  You  do  step  down  a  somewhat 
uneven  but  very  safe  staircase.  You  reach  the  bot- 
tom. "  Look !  now  it  comes !"  and  the  proud  cascade 
plunges  like  a  freed  force  into  the  air  and  slips, 
swimming  in  foam,  away  from  your  gaze. 

You  would  gladly  stay  all  day.  But  the  sage  of 
the  party  looks  at  his  watch — remembers  dinner — 
deems  it  time  to  think  of  returning ;  and  you  climb 
the  staircase — step  upon  the  balcony — throw  a  last 
look  into  the  abyss — down  the  blue  mistiness  of  the 
winding  valley  whose  repose  leads  your  thought  far 
into  eternal  silence  and  summer,  and  mounting  the 
coach  you  are  boxed  up  again  and  delivered  at  the 
Mountain  House  just  as  the  dinner-bell  rings. 

This  is  ludicrous.  "But  most  of  us  are  really  only 
shop-keepers,  and  natural  spectacles  are  but  shop- 
windows  on  a  great  scale.  People  love  the  country 
theoretically,  as  they  do  poetry.  Very  few  are  heroic 
enough  to  confess  that  it  is  wearisome,  even  when 


CATSKILL    FALLS.  49 

they  are  fatigued  by  it.  The  reason  of  which  reluct- 
ance I  suppose  to  be  a  lurking  consciousness  that  we 
ought  to  love  it,  that  we  ought  to  be  satisfied  and 
glad  among  the  hills  and  under  the  trees,  and  that  if 
we  are  not,  it  is  because  the  city  has  corrupted  us — 
because  the  syren  has  sung  away  our  strength.  The 
distaste  which  many  clever  persons  feel  for  Words- 
worth, may  often  be  traced  to  a  want  of  sympathy 
with  his  intense  and  personal  enjoyment  of  nature. 
It  is  incredible  to  them,  and  seems  inflated  if  not  false. 

This  want  of  direct  pleasure  and  exhilaration  in 
nature  is  a  matter  of  regret,  as  would  be  the  want  of 
love  for  flowers.  A  man  who  has  it  is  never  friend- 
less. The  wildest  or  rarest  day  flushing  the  land- 
scape with  its  own  character,  is  his  companion  and 
his  counsellor.  "The  mountains  are  a  feeling,"  the 
streams  are  books  that  babble  without  nonsense,  and 
the  coming  and  going  of  the  year,  as  he  marks  it 
upon  the  budding  and  fading  leaf,  is  the  swelling 
and  dying  of  celestial  music  in  his  heart.  Happily 
no  man  is  always  insensible.  He  cannot  always  es- 
cape the  electrical  shock  of  natural  grandeur  and 
beauty.  A  noble  landscape,  a  cataract,  a  mountain, 
impresses  him  imperially,  but  as  vaguely  and  blind- 
ly as  a  great  hero  surprises  pedlers  and  pettifoggers. 

Olde  and  Swansdowne  and  I,  citizens  too,  de- 
scended the  perpendicular  staircase  to  the  rock  pave- 

C 


50  LOTUS-EATING. 

merit,  which,  hollowed  into  a  basin  in  the  centre, 
receives  the  first  long  fall.  You  may  picture  the 
general  effect  of  the  scene  from  below  by  fancying  a 
mountain  stream  followed  up  the  natural  valley  be- 
tween two  mountains,  until  it  is  checked  by  an 
abrupt  rocky  precipice,  stretching  from  one  hillside 
to  the  other  directly  across  the  ravine,  and  half-con- 
cavely  pointing  down  the  valley.  Directly  over  the 
centre  of  the  parapet  of  this  rocky  wall  flows  the 
Fall.  At  first  it  is  only  the  surplus  of  a  dammed 
mill-stream,  (I  beg  pardon,)  but  beyond  the  mill  and 
the  dam,  nature  has  claimed  her  own  again,  and 
reels  the  slight  stream  away,  a  thread  of  airy  silver, 
wreathing  into  rainbow  spray. 

Indeed,  so  slight  is  the  Fall,  when  not  turned  on, 
but  only  dripping  through  the  gate,  that  there  is  but 
a  single  shoot  of  watery  arrows  in  Indian  file,  an 
appearance  which  any  observer  of  cascades  will  un- 
derstand. It  is  about  the  volume  of  the  Swiss  Staub- 
bach,  when  it  has  fallen  some  four  hundred  of  its 
nine  hundred  feet  toward  the  green  lawns  of  Lauter- 
brunnen,  which  it  moistens  as  spray  and  never 
reaches  as  a  fall,  except  during  a  "  spell  of  weather," 
the  dissolution  of  spring,  or  some  other  time  unseen 
of  Dr.  Syntax,  and  the  hunters  of  the  picturesque. 

The  first  effect  of  the  Catskill  Fall  is  very  simple 
and  beautiful.  Seen  from  the  highest  platform, 


CATSKILL    FALLS.  51 

after  you  have  descended  and  are  looking  up,  it  has 
a  quiet  grandeur,  even,  which  declines  into  pictu- 
resqueness  when  you  pass  below  the  second  broken 
fall  that  pours  away  into  the  gorge,  whence  it  steals 
oif,  singing,  between  the  heavily  wooded  hillsides. 
The  great  rock,  over  which  flows  the  first  fall,  is 
hollowed  out,  a  little  above  the  level  of  the  basin 
into  which  it  plunges,  and  you  can  walk,  stooping  a 
little,  quite  around  and  behind  the  thin,  flickering 
fall.  It  has  a  delicate  spray  of  its  own,  too,  when 
the  wind  scatters  it  into  the  sunlight  which  touches 
it  into  diamond  dust;  and  very  gracious  was  the 
sun  that  morning,  for  when,  after  our  arrival  below, 
the  coaches  arrived  above,  and  the  parties  descend- 
ed, the  ladies  glided  and  shrank  along  under  the 
rock — a  motley  troop  of  white  ladies  of  Avenel,  if 
you  will,  except  that  for  her  the  fall  parted,  and  she 
did  not  stoop  but  droop — and  as  they  came  around, 
where  the  wind  had  waved  the  cascade  in  spray  to 
cool  them,  the  sun  flashed  suddenly  from  behind 
the  fleecy  clouds,  and  arched  them  with  a  rain- 
bow. What  could  the  Catskill  do  more  for  them, 
since  it  could  not  part  like  the  Fall  of  Avenel, 
and  frame  them  in  living  silver,  as  they  passed 
beneath  ? 

They  all  came  down  to  the  level  of  the  second  fall, 
and  there,  clustered  upon  the  rocks,  we  awaited  the 


52 


LOTUS-EATING. 


"  turning  on,"  or  rather  the  artificial  spring  and  imi- 
tative effects  of  snow-melting  upon  the  mountains, 
produced  by  our  friend  of  the  "Kefreshment  Sa- 
loon," whose  little  building  perched  upon  the  cliff, 
at  the  very  point  of  the  fall,  with  its  friendly  basket 
far  overhanging  the  ravine  upon  an  outstretched 
pole,  like  that  of  an  old  well,  is  extremely  effective 
and  recalls  vaguely  those  desert  convents  from  whose 
high  walls  hang  baskets,  the  sole  communication 
with  the  world,  except  through  posterns  bolted  and 
barred. 

The  fall  swelled  suddenly,  and 
>;  in  a  moment,  a  downward  vol- 
ley  of  flashing  arrows  of  light, 
Kg  plunged  into  the  basin  beneath. 
r  It  flaked  into  spray  as  it  fell, 
r  and  sheeted  the  basin  near  it 
with  foam,  and  the  mist 
^steamed  up  into  the  concave 
*  abyss,  and  clouded  it,  as  if  to 
veil  the  fall  in  its  most  majestic 
moment.  It  was  of  the  same 
character  still,  but  developed  in- 
to fulness ;  and  the  second  fall,  pouring 
over  a  crescent  of  rock  brilliantly  greened  with  grass 
and  light  foliage,  and  of  picturesquely  broken  outline, 
overflowed  at  crevices  and  points  unseen  before,  and 


CATSKILL    FALLS.  53 

a  graceful  group  of  rills  danced  attendance  upon 
each  side  of  the  chief  fall. 

Down  to  the  basin  of  this  we  descended,  and  com- 
manded both  cascades.  But  my  pen  commands  no 
colors,  and  the  neutral  tint  of  words  will  not  glow 
with  the  flashing  water  and  the  rich,  serious  green 
of  the  banks  of  foliage,  nor  seize  the  movement  of 
the  clouds — June  clouds,  that  swam  fleecily  back- 
ward directly  over  the  cascade,  adding  the  sympathy 
of  motion  in  the  moist  blue  sky  to  that  of  the  falling 
water.  This  was  a  rare  and  exquisite  effect.  The 
round,  white  clouds  hung  low,  and  as  they  swept 
swiftly  backward,  seemed  to  pass  through  the  very 
narrow  dent  of  rock  which  the  cascade  had  worn,  as 
if  its  own  spray  had  curled  into  compact  clouds,  and 
was  so  hurrying  back  again  to  feed  the  fountain. 

The  groups  of  loiterers  exhausted  words  but  not 
delight,  and  after  resting  a  little  upon  the  rocks, 
climbed  the  cliff  again  homeward.  We  lingered  be- 
low. Swansdowne  with  rapid  pencil  was  traciug  the 

ipk 
general  outline  of  the  appearance  of  the  full  fall. 

Olde  and  I  were  lying  at  length  gossiping  of  Switz- 
erland, and  watching  the  shifting  splendors  of  the 
day,  and  the  fall,  as  the  gate  was  closed,  gradually 
dwindled,  wasting  from  that  full-bodied  'maturity, 
and  sinking  again  into  infantine  weakness  and  un- 
certainty. 


54:  LOTUS-EATING. 

There  is  a  feeling  of  life  in  moving  water,  and  the 
poets  call  it  living  water,  when  it  flows  freshly  and 
clear.  Therefore,  we  could  not  watch  it,  as  if  pining 
away,  without  a  little  regret,  not  at  the  loss  of  our 
own  pleasure,  but  at  its  loss  of  life.  Its  song  in  the 
ravine  behind  us  grew  fainter,  subsiding  at  last  into 
a  uniform,  gentle  gurgling.  Whether  a  solitary  in 
a  slouched  hat  upon  the  hillside  below  us,  with  tab- 
lets in  hand,  was  measuring  that  murmur  into  verse 
I  shall  never  know.  But  certainly  the  music  of  the 
song  I  shall  never  forget. 

Sunday  stillness  brooded  over  the  day.  Sweet 
and  sacred  it  was  like  the  memory  of  George  Her- 
bert, and  his  was  the  hymn  we  sang  that  Sunday  at 
the  Oatskill  Falls. 


Sweet  day!   so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright; 

The  bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky : 
The  dew  shall  weep  thy  fall  to-night; 
For  thou  must  die. 

Sweet  rose!  whose  hue,  angry  and  brave, 

Bids  the  rash  gazer  wipe  his  eye; 
Thy  root  is  ever  in  its  grave ; — 
And  thou  must  die. 

Sweet  Spring !  fall  of  sweet  days  and  roses ; 

A  box  where  sweets  compacted  lie; 
My  music  shows  ye  have  your  closes: — 
*         And  all  must  die. 

Only  a  sweet  and  virtuous  soul, 
Like  seasoned  timber  never  gives : 


CATSKILL    FALLS.  55 

But,  though  the  whole  world  turn  to  coal, 
Then  chiefly  lives. 

We  walked  down  the  stream  for  a  mile  after- 
wards, and  I  advise  every  one  to  do  the  same,  crossing 
at  the  usual  place,  and  stumbling  over  the  rocks  a 
little  at  first,  but  at  last  pushing  smoothly  on.  The 
path  leads  you  to  a  pleasant  opening  where  the 
water  polishes  a  broad  pavement,  and  where  bits  of 
the  picturesque  abound.  With  his  delicately  sensi- 
tive artistic  eye,  Swansdowne  glanced  among  the 
trees,  and  from  time  to  time,  announced  "a  Ken- 
sett,"  as  a  broad  bit  of  mossed  rock,  or  a  shapely 
stretch  of  trees  with  the  mountain  outline  beyond, 
recalled  the  poetic  accuracy  and  characteristic  sub- 
jects of  that  artist. 

And  so,  finding  the  stones,  poems  and  pictures,  as 
well  as  sermons,  we  voted,  of  course,  to  finish  the 
day  at  the  Fall.  A  neat  and  well-cooked  dinner  in 
the  very  small  and  clean  new  house  near  the  pictu- 
resque bar-room,  (seen  from  below,)  consoled  us  for 
the  loss  of  the  Mountain  House  ordinary,  and,  as  we 
dined,  a  wind  furious  enough  for  November,  a  very 
cataract  of  a  wind,  dashed  and  swept  along  the 
mountain-sides,  and  Swansdowne  and  I  did  privately 
shiver,  (it  was  the  20th  of  July,)  until  we  sallied 
forth  and  clomb  down  the  rock  again  to  the  first 
platform. 


56  LOTUS-EATING. 

The  water  was  unchained  for  us,  and  the  lilies  in 
the  extremest  depths  of  the  ravine  that  grow  beyond 
the  edge  of  the  usual  flowing,  were  folded  once  more 
before  sunset  in  its  crystal  caresses.  The  western 
light  streaming  up  the  ravine  was  of  tenderer  tone 
than  that  of  morning,  and  our  thoughts  grew  tender- 
er too.  Our  chat  was  of  Italy  now,  no  longer  of 
Switzerland,  and  the  tranquil  sunset  closed  over  a 
day  that  will  sing  as  pleasantly  through  memory  as 
the  stream  through  the  solitary  dell. 

"  To-morrow  to  fresh  fields  and  pastures  new." 


TRENTON, 


IV. 


JULY. 

Longfellow's  delicious  proem  to  the 
Waif  he  invokes  the  singing  of  a  song 
of  rest.      Sometimes,   urges  the 
poet,  let  us  escape  the  battle  cry 
and  the  bugle  call,  and  repose 
that  we  may  the  better  wrestle. 

Such  songs  have  power  to  quiet 

The  restless  pulse  of  care, 
And  come  like  the  benediction 

That  follows  after  prayer. 

Trenton  is  that  summer  song  of  rest. 

Only  lovely  images  haunt  its  remembrance,  beau- 
tiful as  the  Iris  which,  in  some  happy  moment  of  the 
ramble  through  the  ravine,  spans  the  larger  or  lesser 
fall.  Beauty  and  grace  are  its  praises.  You  hear 
them  from  those  who  are  either  hurrying  to  the 
grandeur  of  Niagara,  or  from  those  who,  return- 
ing, step  aside  at  TJtica  to  enjoy  the  music  of  the 


60  LOTUS-EATING. 

greater  cataract,  softened  here  at  Trenton  into  an 
exquisite  echo. 

It  matters  littlei  when  you  see  these  Falls,  whether 
before  or  after  Niagara.  The  charm  of  Trenton  is 
unique,  and  you  will  not  scorn  the  violets  and  lilies 
because  you  knelt  to  the  passion-flowers  and  roses. 
In  the  prime  of  a  summer  which,  from  the  abundant 
rains,  is  singularly  unworn  and  unwithered,  a  day 
at  Trenton,  because  of  its  rare  and  picturesque,  but 
harmonious,  attractions,  is  like  a  feast  of  flowers.  In 
some  choice  niche  of  memory  you  will  lay  it  aside, 
not  as  a  sublime  statue  nor  a  prophetic  and  solemn 
picture,  but  as  a  vase  most  delicate,  symmetrical  if 
slight,  and  chased  with  pastoral  tracery. 

From  Albany — its  Campagna-like  suburbs  once 
passed — a  pleasant  day  made  pleasant  pictures  of 
the  broad,  rich,  tranquil  landscape.  The  country 
gained,  possibly,  in  tenderness  of  aspect  that  I 
glanced  at  it  in  the  intervals  of  reading  Hawthorne's 
"  Seven  Gables,"  and  as  the  heat  increased,  the  mo- 
notonous clatter  of  the  cars  grew  soothing  as  the  airy 
harpsichord  of  the  fair  Alice,  dead  centuries  ago,  and 
persuaded  my  mind  into  Clifford's  vague  and  dreamy 
mood.  Floating  thus  along  the  fascinating  verge  of 
slumber,  I  opened  my  eyes  upon  the  placid  pictu- 
resqueness  of  the  actual  landscape,  and  anon  closed 
them  to  behold,  instantly,  the  enchanted  scenery  of 


TEENTON.  61 

sleep.  It  was  a  meet  approach  to  Trenton,  a  passage 
through  a  dream-frescoed  corridor,  pierced  with  win- 
dows that  looked  into  the  real  world.  In  every  gar- 
den, as  we  hurried  on,  wherever  was  an  old  tree  and 
a  hint  of  the  "moated  grange,"  (they  are  not  many 
on  that  railroad,)  I  looked  to  see  the  soft-souled  Clif- 
ford, Alice  Pyncheon,  and  the  high-hearted  Hepzi- 
bah,  seated  in  the  shadow  and  wondering  at  the 
world. 

But  when  the  petulant  bell  rang  two  o'clock  at 
Utica,  dreams  vanished,  and  I  emerged  into  a  crowded 
and  confused  station,  and  was  whirled  among  por- 
ters, luggage,  barrows,  rival  coachmen,  bells,  gongs, 
and  steam,  to  the  hotel.  The  regular  coach  to  Tren- 
ton had  left  upon  the  arrival  of  the  preceding  train, 
but  there  were  several  white-hatted  individuals  of 
extremely  conciliatory  and  persuasive  manners,  who 
launched  instantly  into  extravagant  praises  of  various 
stages,  wagons,  and  other  carriages,  all  offering  the 
most  delightful  and  easy  method  of  reaching  the 
Falls. 

But  it  was  singular  to  an  inquiring  mind  to  remark 
that  whenever  you  descended  to  particulars,  as  to 
hours,  and  numbers,  and  carriages,  these  romances 
instantly  reeled  away  into  the  most  astonishing 
vagueness,  and  while  you  fancied  one  moment  that 
you  heard  the  noise  of  the  fall,  the  next  it  was  a 


62  LOTUS-EATING. 

very  indistinguisliable  and  quite  inaudible  object 
in  the  vista  of  a  prolonged  perspective.  The  fact 
was  that  these  men  who  manifested  so  laudable 
an  interest  in  your  getting  to  Trenton,  comfortably 
and  speedily,  wished  only  to  secure  your  promise  to 
go,  and  would  "  arrange"  afterward.  Remember 
that  when  you  come,  and  act  accordingly. 

It  was  clear  that  nothing  could  be  done  until  after 
dinner,  which  was  despatched,  and  while  I  quietly 
consumed  a  noxious  weed,  and  patiently  awaited  my 
prospects,  a  short,  thick-set,  English-looking  gentle- 
man crossed  the  passage  and  suggested  to  my  fancy 
that  "Two  horsemen  might  have  been  seen  slowly 
mounting  a  hill."  But  before  I  proceeded  further  in 
the  natural  reflections  of  the  moment,  my  co-Trentoni- 
ans  appeared  in  the  shape  of  a  party  of  twelve  ;  just  a 
coach-load  with  their  luggage,  and  my  own  coach- 
prospects  began  to  dwindle  dolefully.  Then  came 
the  tug  of  war,  and  truly  "  no  pent-up  Utica"  con- 
tracted the  powers  of  those  rival  coach-agents,  for  I 
never  heard  so  sharp  a  struggle  for  a  freight. 

The  landlord  was  forced  to  interfere,  while  I  and 
the  "two  horsemen"  stood  aside, — I,  for  my  part, 
wincing  at  every  moment  of  the  tranquil  summer 
afternoon  wasted  from  Trenton.  Presently  there  was 
a  lull  in  the  war,  but  no  victory,  and  when  a  quiet 
man  led  me  quietly  aside,  and  asked  my  views  of  a* 


TRENTON.  63 

little  open  wagon,  and  a  separate  and  rapid  drive  to 
Trenton,  I  found  they  entirely  coincided  with  his, 
and  within  a  few  moments  I  was  rolling  across  the 
spacious,  sunny  plain  of  the  Mohawk. 

But  mark  the  chances  of  life,  nor  dream  of  doing 
"  an  old  stager."  My  private  conveyance,  the  quiet 
suggestion  of  my  quiet  man,  was  the  property  of 
the  very  agent  who  had  first  accosted  me,  and  who, 
as  I  thought,  had  dropped  me  from  minji  as  a  mere 
single  passenger.  Not  he.  Given,  a  party  of  twelve 
together,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  party  of  one  upon 
the  other,  to  furnish  a  coach  to  the  first,  at  $ — !  and 
a  wagon  to  the  other,  at  $ — !  !  was  his  problem, 
and  it  was  solved.  Genius  had  made  this  man  an 
emperor  of  nations ;  fate  had  placed  him  in  author- 
ity over  horses  and  hunters  of  the  picturesque. 

My  charioteer  was  a  fine  boy  of  sixteen.  He 
whipped  along  over  the  plank-road,  and  gossipped  of 
the  horses,  the  people,  and  the  places  we  passed. 
He  was  sharp-eyed  and  clear-minded— a  bright  boy, 
who  may  one  day  be  President.  As  we  were  slowly 
climbing  the  hill — 

"Have  you  heard  Jenny  Lind,  Sir?"  inquired  my 
Antinous  of  the  stables. 

"Yes,  often."  , 

"  Great  woman,  Sir.     Don't  you  think  so  ?" 

uldo." 


64:  LOTUS-EATING. 

"  She  was  here  last  week,  Sir. — Get-up,  Charlie  1" 

"  Did  you  hear  her  ?"  I  asked. 

"  Yes,  Sir,  and  I  drove  with  her  to  the  Falls — that 
is,  Tom  Higgins  drove,  but  I  sat  on  the  box." 

"And  was  she  pleased?" 

" Yes,  Sir;  only  when  she  was  going  to  see  the 
falls,  every  body  in  the  hotel  ran  to  the  door  to  look 
at  her,  so  she  went  back  to  her  room,  and  then 
slipped  out  of  the  back  door.  But  there  was  some- 
thing better  than  that,  Sir." 

"What  was  that?"— 

"She  gave  Tom  Higgins  fifty  dollars  when  he 
drove  her  back.  But  there  was  something  still  bet- 
ter than  that,  Sir :" — 

"  Indeed  !  what  was  that  ?" 

"  Why,  Sir,  as  we  came  back,  we  passed  a  little 
wood,  and  she  stopped  the  carriage,  and  stepped  out 
with  the  rest  of  the  party,  and  me  and  Tom  Higgins, 
and  went  into  the  wood.  It  was  towards  sunset  and 
the  wood  was  beautiful.  She  walked  about  a  little, 
and  picked  up  flowers,  and  sung,  like  to  herself,  as 
if  it  were  pleasant.  By-and-by  she  sat  down  upon 
a  rock  and  began  to  sing  aloud.  But  before  she 
stopped,  a  little  bird  came  and  sat  upon  the  bough 
close  by  us.  I  saw  ity  Sir,  with  my  own  eyes,  the 
whole  of  it — and  when  Jenny  Lind  had  done,  he  be- 
gan to  sing  and  shout  away  like  she  did.  While  he 


TKENTON.  65 

was  singing  she  looked  delighted,  and  when  he 
stopped  she  sang  again,  and — oh!  it  was  beautiful, 
Sir.  But  the  little  bird  wouldn't  give  it  up,  and  he 
sang  again,  but  not  until  she  had  done.  Then  Jenny 
Lind  sang  as  well  as  ever  she  could.  Her  voice 
seemed  to  fill  the  woods  all  up  with  music,  and  when 
it  was  over,  the  little  bird  was  still  a  while,  but  tried 
it  again  in  a  few  moments.  He  could  n't  do  it,  Sir. 
He  sang  very  bad,  and  then  the  foreign  gentlemen 
with  Jenny  Lind  laughed,  and  they  all  came  back 
to  the  carriage." 

We  had  left  the  plank-road  and  were  approaching 
the  hotel  at  the  falls  through  fine  maple  woods.  It 
was  pleasant  to  hear  the  boy's  story.  Was  it  a  poor 
prelude  to  Trenton?  I  had  not  dreamed  that  the 
romance  of  the  Poet's  Lute  and  the  Nightingale 
should  be  native  to  Oneida  county  no  less  than  to 
Greece,  and  that  its  poet  should  be  my  callow  chario- 
teer, who  may  one  day  be  president.  When  I  sat  at 
my  window  afterward  and  in  the  fading  twilight 
looked  over  the  maple  woods,  and  heard  the  murmur 
of  Trenton  Falls,  I  wondered  if  the  bird  ever  reached 
its  nest,  or  was  found  dead  in  the  woods  without  a 
gun-shot  wound. 

There  is  no  better  hotel  than  that  at  Trenton.  It 
is  spacious,  and  clean,  and  comfortable,  and  the  table 
justifies  its  fame.  Moreover,  it  is  painted  dark  and 


DO  LOTUS-EATING. 

not  white,  and  stands  very  modestly  on  the  edge  of 
the  woods  that  overhang  the  ravine  of  the  Falls. 
Modestly,  although  it  is  high,  for  the  glaring,  white 
caravanseries,  our  summer  palaces  of  pleasure,  wear 
the  flaunting  aspect  of  being  no  better  than  they 
should  be.  Happy  were  we,  were  they  always  as 
good! 

Poets'  fancies  only,  should  image  the  Falls,  they 
are  so  rich  and  rare  a  combination  of  quiet  pictu- 
resqueness  of  beauty,  and  a  sense  of  resistless  force 
in  the  rushing  waters.  You  descend  from  a  lofty 
wood  into  a  long,  rocky  chasm,  which  the  Germans 
would  call  a  Grund^  for  it  is  not  a  valley.  It  is 
walled  and  pavemented  with  smooth  rocks,  and  the 
thronging  forest  fringes  the  summit  of  the  wall. 
Over  this  smooth  pavement  slips  the  river,  in  those 
long,  swift,  still,  foamless  bounds,  which  vividly 
figure  the  appalling  movement  of  a  titanic  serpent. 
The  chasm  almost  closes  up  the  river,  and  you  see  a 
foamy  cascade  above.  Then,  as  if  the  best  beauty 
and  mystery  were  beyond,  you  creep  along  a  narrow 
ledge  in  the  rockside  of  the  throat  of  the  gorge,  the 
water  whirling  and  bubbling  beneath,  and  reach  the 
first  large  Fall.  A  slight  spray  enfolds  you  as  a  bap- 
tism in  the  spirit  of  the  place.  A  broad  ledge  of  the 
rock  here  offers  firm  and  sufficient  foothold  while 
you  gaze  at  the  Falls.  Before  you  is  a  level  parapet 


TRENTON. 


67 


of  rock,  and  the  river,  after  - 
sliding  very  shallowly  over 
broad  bed  above,   concentrates 
mainly  at  one  point  for  a  fall,  and  ^ 
plunges  in  a  solid  amber  sheet. 

Close  by  the  side  of  this  you  climb,  ^ 
and  pass  along  the  base  of  the  overhang-  K\ 
ing  mountain,  and  stooping  under  the  foot  of  an  im- 
perial cliff,  stand  before  the  great  Fall,  which  has 
two  plunges,  a  long  one  above,  from  which  the  river 
sheers  obliquely  over  a  polished  floor  of  rock,  and 
again  plunges.  The  river  bends  here,  and  a  high, 
square,  regular  bank  projects  from  the  cliff,  smooth 
as  a  garden  terrace,  and  perpetually  veiled  and  soft- 


68  LOTUS-EATING. 

ened  by  the  spray.  It  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
and  boldest  points  in  the  long  ravine,  and  when  the 
late  light  of  afternoon  falls  soft  upon  it,  there  is  a 
strange  contrast  in  your  feelings  as  visions  of  Boc- 
cacio's  garden  mingle  with  the  wildness  of  American 
woods. 

Upon  the  cliff  above  this  great  Fall  is  a  little  house 
where  the  weary  may  rest,  and  those  who  find 
"  water,  water  everywhere,  but  not  a  drop  to  drink," 
may  pledge  the  spirit  of  Trenton,  in  that  kind,  if  not 
that  quality,  of  nectar  which  Boccacio  himself  would 
have  desired.  Here,  under  the  densely-foliaged  trees 
sit  musing  above  the  Fall,  and  watch  the  broad  stream 
concentrate  as  it  nears  the  verge ;  and  then  from  the 
deep  dark  indigo  of  the  pool  collected  there,  see  it 
pour  itself  away,  a  fall  of  brilliant  amber,  into  the 
light  streaming  warmly  from  the  west  up  the  ravine. 
As  you,  musing,  gaze,  your  own  fancy  will  flow  from 
the  sombreness  of  serious  thought,  and  pour  itself 
away  in  a  spray  of  romance  and  reverie,  far  through 
the  golden  gloom  of  the  past  and  the  bright-hued 
hope  of  the  future  that  streams  toward  you  like  the 
light  from  the  west. 

You  will  recall  the  European  falls  of  fame ;  you 
will  hear  once  more  the  glad  Yelino  "  cleave  the 
wave-worn  precipice,"  and  mark  the  dark  eyes  of 
Italian  girls,  who  steal  to  your  side  as  you  listen, 


TRENTON.  69 

and  say,  as  if  the  dark  eyes  whispered  it,  "  un  lai- 
occho,  Signore"  You  will  see  the  Sibylline  temple, 
high-crowning  the  cliff  at  Tivoli,  and  once  more,  over 
the  sea-surface,  but  silent  and  motionless,  of  the 
Campagna,  your  eye  will  rest  upon  St.  Peter's  dome, 
rising  mountain-like  from  the  plain,  and  Beatrice 
d'Este  will  glide  a  pallid  phantom,  along  the  marble- 
floored,  cypress-gloomed  terraces  of  the  villa.  The 
thousand  Alpine  cascades  of  Switzerland  will  flicker 
through  your  memory,  slight  avalanches  of  snow- 
dust,  shimmering  into  rainbow-mist,  and  the  Ehine, 
beneath  your  back  window  in  the  hotel  at  Schaff- 
hausen,  will  plunge  once  more  over  its  little  rocky 
barrier,  sending  its  murmur  far  into  the  haunted 
depths  of  the  Black  Forest  beside  you.  Or,  farther 
and  fainter  still,  the  rapids  of  the  Nile  and  the  rills 
of  Lebanon  will  rush  and  gurgle,  as  you  did  not 
dream  to  hear  them  again,  nor  will  your  fancy  rest 
until  it  sinks  in  the  oriental  languor  of  the  banks  of 
Abana  and  Parphar,  rivers  of  Damascus. 

Wild  is  the  witchery  of  water,  and  the  spell  en- 
chanted, which  its  ceaseless  flowing  weaves.  Such 
pictures  were  in  that  amber  Fall.  Such  echoes  an- 
swered those  silver  cadences.  Such  names,  and 
places,  and  memories  are  now  the  synonymes  of 
Trenton.  But  for  you  and  for  others  it  may  sing 
different  songs.  An  organ  of  many  stops,  it  discour- 


f 

70  LOTUS-EATING. 

ses  sweet  music  in  all.  Not  like  the  airy  harpsichord 
of  the  fair  Alice,  dead  centuries  ago,  tuned  to  a  sin- 
gle strain,,  but  like  the  heart  of  the  young  Phoebe, 
gushing  gaily  or  gravely,  according  as  the  sun  or 
shadow  overswept  it. 

There  is  something  especially  pleasant  in  the  tran- 
quil, family-like  character  of  the  house  at  Trenton. 
It  is  by  far  the  best  hostelry  of  the  kind  that  I  have 
encountered  in  my  summer  wandering ;  and,  lying 
away  from  any  town  or  railroad,  the  traveller  seems 
to  have  stepped  back  into  the  days  when  travelling 
was  an  event  and  not  a  habit,  and  when  the  necessity 
of  moderation  in  speed  imposed  a  corresponding 
leisure  in  enjoyment.  Doubtless  the  railroad  makes 
us  move  mentally,  as  well  as  physically,  with  more 
rapidity.  The  eye  sees  more  in  life,  but  does  the 
heart  feel  more,  is  experience  really  richer  ?  Haste 
breeds  indigestion,  but  happiness  lies,  first  of  all,  in 
health. 

The  man  who  in  the  quiet  round  of  life  has  made 
friends  with  every  object  of  the  landscape  he  knows, 
who  sees  its  changes,  and  sympathizes  with  them, 
and  who  has  learned  from  a  single  tree  what  men 
have  exhausted  all  libraries  and  societies  without 
finding — he  is  of  better,  because  of  profounder,  ex- 
perience than  his  friend  who  has  raced  over  half  the 
world  in  a  twelve-month,  and  whose  memory  is  only 


TKENTON.  71 

a  kaleidoscope.  A  mile  horizontally  on  the  surface 
of  the  earth  does  not  carry  you  one  inch  toward  its 
centre,  and  yet  it  is  in  the  centre  that  the  gold  mines 
are.  A  man  who  truly  knows  Shakspeare,  only,  is 
the  master  of  a  thousand  who  have  squeezed  the  cir- 
culating libraries  dry. 

Do  not  fail  to  see  Trenton.  It  is  various- voiced. 
It  is  the  playing  of  lutes  on  the  moonlight  lawn — as 
Stoddard  delicately  sings.  It  is  well  to  listen  for  it 
in  the  pauses  of  the  steam-shriek  of  our  career.  For 
if  once  your  fancy  hears  its  murmur,  you  will  be  as 
the  boatman  who  catches  through  the  roar  of  the 
Rhine,  the  song  of  the  Lorelei,  and  you  too,  will  be 
won  to  delicious  repose. 

"  But  thou,  who  dids't  appear  so  fair 

To  fond  imagination, 
Dost  rival  in  the  light  of  day, 

Her  delicate  creation : 
Meek  loveliness  is  round  thee  spread, 

A  softness  still  and  holy: 
The  grace  of  forest  charms  decayed, 

And  pastoral  melancholy. 

"  The  vapors  linger  round  the  height ; 

They  meet — and  soon  must  vanish : 
One  hour  is  theirs,  nor  more  is  mine, — 

Sad  thought,  which  I  would  banish, 
But  that  I  know,  where'er  I  go, 

Thy  genuine  image.  Yarrow, 
Will  dwell  with  me, — to  heighten  joy, 

And  cheer  my  mind  in  sorrow." 


NIAGARA, 


D 


V. 


AUGUST. 

j  HE    Kapids    before 
Niagara    are  not  of 
water  only.   The  Cat- 
;  aract  is  the  centre  of 
:  a  vortex  of  travel — a 
"^  maelstrom  which  you 
"  V  scarcely  suspect  until  you 
are  swimming  round  in  its  intense 
>  swiftness,   and   feel   that   you   are 
|/:  drawn  nearer  and  closer,  every  mo- 
fment,    to    an    awful    and    unimagined 
1 }'  Presence. 

The  summer-bird  of  a  traveller  who  skims  up  the 
Hudson  dippingly,  wending  Niagara- ward,  if  he  has 
never  seen  the  Falls,  and  has  heard  of  them  all  his 
life,  loiters  along  his  way,  quite  unimpressed  by  the 
anticipation  of  his  bourne,  whose  image  has  lost 


76  LOTUS-EATING. 

much  of  its  grandeur  in  his  mind  by  the  household 
familiarity  of  the  name.  It  is  somewhat  so  with 
Switzerland  after  a  residence  in  Europe.  You  ap- 
proach half  languidly,  more  than  half  suspicious  that 
the  fixed  stare  of  the  world  has  melted  the  glaciers, 
and  the  snow  sifted  along  inaccessible,  rocky  crevi- 
ces, or  at  least  has  sadly  stained  them,  and  that  even 
the  Alps  have  been  lionized  into  littleness.  But 
some  choice  evening,  as  if  the  earth  had  suddenly 
bared  her  bosom  to  the  glowing  kiss  of  the  dying 
day,  you  behold  from  Berne  or  Zurich  the  austere 
purity  of  the  snow- Alps,  incredibly  lofty,  majestic 
and  awful,  and  the  worship  of  remembrance  is  for- 
ever after,  living  and  profound. 

So  I  came  sauntering  along  through  Western  New 
York,  (sauntering  by  steam  ! — and  yet  the  mind  may ' 
loiter,  may  remain  fast  and  firm  behind,  although 
the  body  flies,)  and  turned  aside  with  my  presidential 
Antinous  at  Trenton,  nor  once  paused  to  listen 
through  its  graceful  whisper  for  the  regal  voice  be- 
yond. In  the  ravine  of  Trenton  you  meet  some 
chance  friend  returning  from  the  great  cataract,  and 
sit  with  him  upon  the  softest  rock,  where  you  can 
well  watch  the  beautiful  amber-fall  the  while,  and 
curiously  compare,  at  the  last  moment,  your  own  fan- 
cies, with  the  daguerrean  exactness  of  his  fresh  im- 
pression. But,  after  all,  it  is  only  curiously.  You 


NIAGARA.  77 

dream  and  wonder  vaguely,  and  comparisons  are 
constantly  baffled  by  the  syren  singing  of  the  falling 
waters  which  will  have  no  divided  love.  Allured  by 
the  beauty  in  whose  lap  you  lie,  your  friend's  present 
praises  are  much  sincerer  and  more  intelligible  than 
his  remembered  raptures. 

Such  a  friend  I  met  and  we  discussed  Niagara. 
But  as  he  told  his  story,  I  was  placing  the  stairs  here, 
and  towers  there,  about  the  rocks ;  and  the  great 
sheet  and  the  little  sheet  were  before  us ;  and  Goat 
Island  smiled  greenly  in  the  bold,  beautiful  bank, 
which,  like  a  verdured  terrace,  hung  toward  the 
stream  from  an  enchanted  palace  in  the  pines ;  and 
when  the  tale  was  told,  I  had  a  very  pleasant,  if 
somewhat  incongruous,  fancy  of  Niagara,  as  a  kind 
of  sublimed  Trenton. 

And  still,  with  memory  clinging  to  the  amber 
skirts  of  Trenton,  I  rushed  along  on  a  day  that  veiled 
the  outline  of  the  landscape  with  scudding  gusts  of 
mist,  through  the  most  classical  of  all  American  re- 
gions— through  Eome,  and  Manlius,  and  Syracuse, 
and  Camillus,  and  Marcellus  ;  ruthlessly  on,  through 
Waterloo,  Geneva,  East  Vienna,  Eochester,  Cold 
Water,  Chili,  (natural  neighbors!)  Byron,  Attica 
and  Darien ;  then  drew  breath  enough  to  wonder, 
that  with  such  wealth  of  names  inherited  from  the 
Indians,  we  so  tenaciously  cling  to  the  glories  of  old 


78  LOTUS-EATING. 

fames  to  cover  the  nakedness  of  our  newness,  and 
saw,  at  the  same  moment  that  we  had  left  classical- 
ity,  that  we  had  overtaken  a  name  peculiar  to  our 
continent,  and  had  arrived  at  Buffalo ! 

Why  not  Bison,  Ox,  or  Wild  Horse  ?  And  this, 
too,  with  the  waves  breaking  along  the  shore  of  Lake 
Ontario,  a  majestic  and  melodious  Indian  name, 
hitherto  unappropriated  to  a  city.  No  wonder  that 
the  Buffalo  sky  thundered  and  lightened  all  night, 
from  sheer  vexation  at  its  loss.  I  awoke  at  midnight 
to  the  music  of  a  serenade  that  was  vainly  striving 
to  soothe  the  tempest,  and  later,  the  angry  clash  of 
fire-bells  stormed  against  the  storm.  But  it  was  not 
comforted  or  subdued.  Still,  in  the  lull  of  the  music, 
and  the  pauses  of  the  bells,  I  heard  it  muttering  and 
moaning  as  it  glared :  "  I,  that  am  Buffalo,  might 
have  been  Ontario." 

But  the  storm  wept  itself  away,  and  I  awoke  at 
morning  to  find  myself  upon  the  verge  of  the  interest 
and  excitement  which  immediately  precedes  all  great 
events.  During  the  previous  day  I  had  smiled  rather 
loftily  at  the  idea  of  excitement  in  approaching  Ni- 
agara ;  but  when  my  luggage  was  checked,  and  I 
bought  a  ticket  for  "  Niagara  Falls,"  and  stepping 
into  the  cars,  knew  that  I  should  not  alight  until  I 
heard  the  roar  and  saw  the  spray  of  the  cataract ; 
then  the  sense  of  its  grandeur,  of  its  unique  sublim- 


NIAGAKA.  79 

ity,  which  I  .perfectly  knew,  though  I  had  never  seen, 
came  down  upon  me,  and  smote  me  suddenly  with 
awe — as  when  a  man  who  has  loitered  idly  to  St. 
Peter's,  grasps  the  leathern  curtain  to  push  it  aside, 
that  he  may  behold  the  magnificence  whose  remem- 
bered lustre  shall  illuminate  every  year  of  his  life. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  anti-romance  of  a  rail- 
road is  a  mere  prejudice.  The  straight  lines  piercing 
the  rounding  landscape  are  essentially  poetic,  and 
the  fervid  desire  of  sight  and  possession  which  fires 
the  mind  upon  approaching  beloved  or  famous  places 
and  persons,  takes  adequate  form  in  the  steam-speed 
of  a  train  which,  straight  as  thought  and  swift  as 
hope,  cleaves  the  country  to  the  single  point.  In  the 
wild  woods  we  do  not  insist  upon  the  prosaic  charac- 
ter of  the  railroad,  because  we  wish  to  hurry  through ; 
and  no  one,  I  believe,  not  even  the  poets,  sigh  for  the 
good  old  times  of  staging  from  Albany  to  Niagara. 

But,  in  Europe,  in  lands  of  traditional  romance,  it 
appears  at  first  very  differently.  A  railroad  to 
Yenice !  "  Heaven  forefend  1"  said  I,  as  I  lumbered 
easily  out  of  Florence  in  a  vettura,  comfortably  ac- 
complishing its  thirty  miles  a  day.  "  Heaven  fore- 
fend  !"  said  I  still,  as  we  climbed  the  Apennines, 
and  descending,  rolled  into  quaint,  arcaded  Bologna, 
and  listened  beneath  Eaphael's  St.  Cecilia,  to  hear 
if  no  spirit  of  a  sound  trembled  from  the  harp-strings. 


80  LOTUS-EATING. 

"  Heaven  forefend !"  said  I  still,  as  we  jogged  along 
the  Lombard  post-roads,  green  and  golden,  and  glit- 
tering with  the  swaying  of  vines  in  the  languid  wind, 
hanging  from  grave,  stiff  old  poplars,  like  beautiful, 
winning,  bewildering  arms  of  loveliness,  caressing 
whole  perspectives  of  solemn  quaker  papas,  and  fes- 
tooning the  road  as  if  the  summer  were  a  festival  of 
Bacchus,  and  a  jolly  rout  of  bacchanals  had  but  now 
reeled  along  to  the  vintage.  "  Heaven  forefend  !" 
said  I,  as  we  tramped  through  the  grassy  streets  of 
Ferrara,  mouthing  uncertain  verses  from  Tasso,  and 
utterly  incredulous  of  Byron's  fable  of  songless  gon- 
doliers beyond:  and  still,  " Heaven  forefend  !"  said 
I,  as  by  the  many-domed  cathedral  of  St.  Antony,  we 
mingled  in  the  evening  Corso,  and  straining  our  eyes 
for  the  University  of  Padua,  alighted  at  the  hotel, 
thirty  or  forty  miles  from  Venice.  But  when,  the 
next  morning,  I  opened  my  eyes,  and,  eschewing  the 
cud  of  dreams,  said  to  myself,  "  You  are  thirty  miles 
from  Yenice,"  I  sprang  up  like  one  whose  marriage- 
morn  has  dawned,  and  cried  aloud,  "Thank  God, 
there  is  a  railroad  to  Yenice !" 

Nor  could  the  speed  of  that  railroad  more  than 
figure  the  eagerness  of  my  desire,  as  it  swept  us 
through  the  vineyards.  Nor  did  the  dream  of  Yenice 
fade,  but  deepen  rather,  for  the  strange  contrast  of 
that  wild  speed,  and  its  eternal,  romantic  rest. 


NIAGARA.  81 

I  had  the  same  eagerness  in  stepping  upon  the  cars 
at  Buffalo.  Within  a  certain  circumference  every  body 
is  Niagarized,  and  flies  in  a  frenzy  to  the  centre  as  fil- 
ings to  the  magnet.  Before  the  train  stopped,  and 
while  I  fancied  that  we  were  slackening  speed  for  a 
way-station — I,  listening  the  while  to  the  pleasant 
music  of  words,  that  weaned  my  hearing  from  any 
roar  of  waters — a  crowd  of  men  leaped  from  the  cars, 
and  ran  like  thieves,  lovers,  soldiers,  or  what  you  will, 
to  the  "  Cataract,"  as  the  conductor  said.  I  looked  upon 
them  at  once  as  a  select  party  of  poets,  overwhelmed 
by  the  enthusiastic  desire  to  see  the  Falls.  It  was 
an  error :  they  were  "  knowing  ones,"  intent  upon  the 
first  choice  of  rooms  at  the  "  Cataract  House."  I 
followed  them,  and  found  a  queue,  as  at  the  box-office 
of  the  opera  in  Paris — a  long  train  of  travellers  wait- 
ing to  enter  their  names.  Not  one  could  have  a  room 
yet,  (it  was  ten  o'clock,)  but  at  half-past  two  every 
body  was  going  away,  and  then  every  body  could 
be  accommodated. 

— And  meanwhile  ? 

— Meanwhile,  Niagara. 

Disappointment  in  Niagara  seems  to  be  affected, 
or  childish.  Your  fancies  may  be  very  different,  but 
the  regal  reality  sweeps  them  away  like  weeds  and 
dreams.  You  may  have  nourished  some  impossible 
idea  of  one  ocean  pouring  itself  over  a  precipice  into 


82  LOTUS-EATING. 

another.  But  it  was  a  wild  whim  of  inexperience, 
and  is  in  a  moment  forgotten.  If,  standing  upon  the 
bridge  as  you  cross  to  Goat  Island,  you  can  watch 
the  wild  sweep  and  swirl  of  the  waters  around  the 
wooded  point  above,  dashing,  swelling  and  raging, 
but  awful  from  the  inevitable  and  resistless  rush,  and 
not  feel  that  your  fancy  of  a  sea  is  paled  by  the  chaos 
of  wild  water  that  tumbles  toward  you,  then  you  are 
a  child,  and  the  forms  of  your  thought  are  not  precise 
enough  for  the  profoundest  satisfaction  in  great  nat- 
ural spectacles. 

Over  that  bridge  how  slowly  you  will  walk,  and 
how  silently,  gazing  in  awe  at  the  tempestuous  sweep 
of  the  rapids,  and  glancing  with  wonder  at  the  faint 
cloud  of  spray  over  the  American  Fall.  As  the 
sense  of  grandeur  and  beauty  subdues  your  mind, 
you  will  still  move  quietly  onward,  pausing  a  mo- 
ment, leaning  a  moment  on  the  railing,  closing  your 
eyes  to  hear  only  Niagara,  and  ever,  as  a  child  says 
its  prayers  in  a  time  of  danger,  slowly,  and  with 
strange  slowness,  repeating  to  yourself,  "  Niagara  ! 
Niagara !" 

For  although  you  have  not  yet  seen  the  Cataract, 
you  feel  that  nothing  else  can  be  the  crisis  of  this 
excitement.  Were  you  suddenly  placed  blindfolded 
where  you  stand,  and  your  eyes  were  unbandaged, 
and  you  were  asked,  "  What  shall  be  the  result  of  all 


NIAGARA.  83 

this  ?"  the  answer  would  accompany  the  question, 
"  Niagara !" 

Yet  marvellous  calmness  still  waits  upon  intense 
feeling.  "  It  was  odd,"  wrote  Sterling  to  a  friend, 
"  to  be  curiously  studying  the  figures  on  the  doctor's 
waistcoat,  while  my  life,  as  I  thought,  was  bleeding 
from  my  lips."  "We  must  still  sport  with  our  emo- 
tions. Some  philosopher  will  die,  his  last  breath 
sparkling  from  his  lips  in  a  pun.  Some  fair  and 
fated  Lady  Jane  Grey  will  span  her  slight  neck  with 
her  delicate  fingers,  and  smile  to  the  headsman  that 
his  task  is  easy.  And  we,  with  kindred  feeling,  turn 
aside  into  the  shop  of  Indian  curiosities  and  play 
with  Niagara,  treating  it  as  a  jester,  as  a  Bayadere, 
to  await  our  pleasure. 

Then,  through  the  woods  on  Goat  Island — solemn 
and  stately  woods — how  slowly  you  will  walk,  again, 
and  how  silently !  Ten  years  ago,  your  friend  carved 
his  name  upon  some  tree  there,  and  Niagara  must 
now  wait  until  he  finds  it,  swollen  and  shapeless  with 
time.  You  saunter  on.  It  is  not  a  sunny  day.  It 
is  cloudy,  but  the  light  is  moist  and  rich,  and  when 
you  emerge  upon  the  quiet  green  path  that  skirts  the 
English  Eapids,  the  sense  of  life  in  the  waters — the 
water  as  a  symbol  of  life  and  human  passion — fills 
your  mind.  Certainly  no  other  water  in  the  world  is 
watched  with  such  anxiety,  with  such  sympathy. 


84  LOTUS-EATING. 

The  helplessness  of  its  frenzied  sweep  saddens  your 
heart.  It  is  dark,  fateful,  foreboding.  At  times,  as 
if  a  wild  despair  had  seized  it  and  rent  it,  it  seethes, 
and  struggles,  and  dashes  foam-like  into  the  air.  Not 
with  kindred  passion  do  you  regard  it,  but  sadly, 
with  folded  hands  of  resignation,  as  you  watch  the 
death  struggles  of  a  hero.  It  sweeps  away  as  you 
look,  dark,  and  cold,  and  curling,  and  the  seething 
you  saw,  before  your  thought  is  shaped,  is  an  eddy 
of  foam  in  the  Niagara  River  below. 


As  yet  you  have  not  seen  the  Fall.  You  are  com- 
ing with  its  waters,  and  are  at  its  level.  But  groups 
of  persons,  sitting  upon  yonder  point,  which  we  see 
through  the  trees,  are  looking  at  the  Cataract.  We 
do  not  pause  for  them  ;  we  run  now,  down  the  path, 


NIAGABA.  85 

along  the  bridges,  into  the  Tower,  and  lean  far  over 
where  the  spray  cools  our  faces.  The  living  water 
of  the  rapids  moves  to  its  fall,  as  if  torpid  with  ter- 
ror ;  and  the  river  that  we  saw,  in  one  vast  volume 
now  pours  over  the  parapet,  and  makes  Niagara. 
It  is  not  all  stricken  into  foam  as  it  falls,  but  the 
densest  mass  is  smooth,  and  almost  of  livid  green. 

Yet,  even  as  it  plunges,  see  how  curls  of  spray 
exude  from  the  very  substance  of  the  mass,  airy, 
sparkling  and  wreathing  into  mist — emblems  of  the 
water's  resurrection  into  summer  clouds.  Looking 
over  into  the  abyss,  we  behold  nothing  below,  we 
hear  only  a  slow,  constant  thunder  ;  and,  bewildered 
in  the  mist,  dream  that  the  Cataract  has  cloven  the 
earth  to  its  centre,  and  that,  pouring  its  waters  into 
the  fervent  inner  heat,  they  hiss  into  spray,  and 
overhang  the  fated  Fall,  the  sweat  of  its  agony. 


NIAGARA,  AGAIN. 


VI. 


tngura,  again. 


AUGUST. 

RETHUSA  arose 
"From  her  conch  of  snows 
In  the  Acrocerannian  Mountains — 
From  cloud  and  from  crag 
With  many  a  jag, 
^Shepherding  her  bright  fountains, 
She  leapt  down  the  rocks, 
With  her  rainbow  locks 
Streaming  among  the  streams : 
Her  steps  paved  with  green 
The  downward  ravine, 
Which  slopes  to  the  Western  gleams: 
And  gliding  and  springing, 
She  went  ever  singing 
In  murmurs  as  soft  as  sleep: 

The  earth  seemed  to  love  her, 
And  heaven  smiled  above  her, 
As  she  lingered  toward  the  deep. 

SHELLEY  would  wonder,  could  he  know  that  these 
lines  of  his  were  quoted  at  Niagara.  But  Niagara  is 
no  less  beautiful  than  sublime,  although  I  do  not  re- 
member to  have  heard  much  of  its  beauty.  It  even 


90  LOTUS-EATING. 

suggests  the  personal  feeling  implied  in  such  verses, 
and  which,  at  a  distance,  seems  utterly  incompatible 
with  the  grandeur  of  the  spot. 

Nature  has  her  partialities  for  places  as  well  as 
persons,  and  as  she  thrones  the  Goethean  or  Web- 
sterian  intellect  upon  "  the  front  of  Jove  himself," 
so  she  is  quite  sure  to  adorn  the  feet  of  her  snowy 
Alps  with  the  lustrous  green  of  vineyards,  the  stately 
shade  of  chestnuts,  or  the  undulating  sweep  of  lawn- 
like  pastures.  Here  at  Niagara  she  enamels  the 
cliffs  with  delicate  verdure,  and  the  luminous  gloom 
of  the  wood  upon  Goat  Island  invites  to  meditation 
with  cathedral  solemnity. 

Nothing  struck  me  more  than  the  ease  of  access  to 
the  very  verge  of  the  cataract.  Upon  the  narrow 
point  between  the  large  and  small  American  falls 
you  may  sit  upon  the  soft  bank  on  a  tranquil  after- 
noon, dabbling  your  feet  in  the  swiftly  slipping 
water,  reading  the  most  dreamy  of  romances,  and 
soothed  by  the  huge  roar,  as  if  you  were  the  vice- 
gerent of  the  prophet,  and  the  flow  of  the  cool, 
smooth  river  but  the  constant  caressing  of  troops  of 
slaves,  and  the  roar  of  the  Cataract  but  hushed 
voices  singing  their  lord  to  sleep. 

But  if  in  your  reading  you  pause,  or  if  the  low  rip- 
ple of  talk  subsides,  in  which  your  soul  was  laved, 
as  your  frame  in  the  gurgling  freshness  of  wood- 


NIAGARA.  91 

streams,  and  your  eyes  are  left  charmed  upon  the 
current — or  if  your  dream  dissolves  and  you  behold 
the  water,  its  own  fascination  is  not  less  than  that  of 
the  romance.  It  flows  so  tranquilly,  is  so  unimpa- 
tient  of  the  mighty  plunge,  that  it  woos  and  woos 
you  to  lay  your  head  upon  its  breast  and  slide  into 
dreamless  sleep. 

Darkling,  I  listen ;   and.  for  many  a  time, 

I  have  been  half  in  love  with  easeful  death — 
Called  him  soft  names  in  many  a  mused  rhyme 

To  take  into  the  air  my  quiet  breath: 

Now  more  than  ever  seems  it  rich  to  die, 
To  cease  upon  the  midnight  with  no  pain, 

While  thou  art  pouring  forth  thy  soul  abroad 

In  such  an  ecstacy ! 
Still  wouldst  thou  sing  and  I  have  ears  in  vain 

To  thy  high  requiem  become  a  sod. 

So  sang  Keats  to  the  nightingale  which  sang  to 
him,  and  whoever  was  really  so  enamored  could  ill 
resist  the  seduction  of  the  stream  at  the  Falls.  For 
in  its  might  subsides  all  fear.  It  is  a  force  so  resist- 
less, that  it  would  need  only  a  slight  step,  the  merest 
overture  of  your  will.  If  Niagara  were  in  France,  I 
am  confident  the  Frenchmen  would  make  suicide 
pic-nics  to  the  Cataract.  Unhappy  lovers  would  take 
express  trains,  and  their  "  quietus  make  "where  their 
dirge  would  be  endless.  The  French,  of  course, 
would  add  the  melo-dramatic  character  of  such  an 
ending  to  its  intrinsic  charms,  and  even  John  Bull 


92  LOTUS-EATING. 

might  forego  the  satisfaction  of  a  leap  from  the  Duke 
of  York's  column  for  a  Niagaran  annihilation. 

As  you  sit,  chatting  and  wondering,  upon  the  bench 
at  this  point,  you  are  sure  to  hear  the  sad  romance  of 
two  years  since.  A  young  man  caught  up  a  child 
and  swung  it  to  and  fro  over  the  water  only  a  few 
feet  from  the  precipice,  laughing  gaily  and  feign- 
ing fright,  when  suddenly  the  child  sprang  from  his 
arms  into  the  rapid.  He  stepped  in  instantly,  for  the 
water  near  the  shore  is  not  more  than  two  feet  deep, 
and  caught  her  again  in  his  arms.  But  the  treach- 
erous stones  at  the  bottom  were  so  slippery  with  the 
constant  action  of  the  water,  that,  although  he  could 
resist  the  force  of  the  stream,  he  could  not  maintain 
his  foothold,  and  was  swept  with  the  child  in  his 
arms,  and  his  betrothed  mistress  watching  him  from 
the  bank,  directly  over  the  fall.  The  man  who  told 
me  the  story  was  a  musician  and  had  still  a  low  tone 
of  horror  in  his  voice ;  for  he  said  that,  as  the  young 
man  came  to  the  Point,  he  told  him  there  was  to  be 
a  dance  that  evening  and  that  he  must  have  his 
music  ready.  They  had  scarcely  parted,  his  words 
were  yet  ringing  in  his  ears,  when  he  heard  a  curd- 
ling shriek  of  terror,  and  knew  that  "somebody  had 
gone  over  the  Falls." 

Niagara  has  but  one  interest,  and  that  absorbs  all 
attention.  The  country  around  is  entirely  level,  and 


NIAGARA. 


93 


covered  with  woods  and 
grain  fields.  It  is 
very  thinly  pop- 
ulated ;  civi-  \ 
lization  seems  to 
have  made  & 
small  inroad  ^^ 
upon  the  pri-  jflj 
meval  grand-  / 
eur  of  the  spot.' 
Standing  upon  the 
western  end  of  Goat 
Island  and  looking  up  ,f 
the  stream  the  wooded  / 
banks  stare  back  upon 
you  as  in  a  savage  si-  /  ; 
lence  of  folded  arms  and  ' 
scornful  eyes.  They  are  not 
fair  woods,  but  dark  forests. 
They  smite  you  only  with  a  sense  of  magnificent 
space,  as  I  fancy  the  impression  of  Eocky  Moun- 
tain scenery,  but  which  is  akin  to  that  of  chaos. 

From  the  spot  where  stood  the  young  English  her- 
mit's cottage,  upon  Goat  Island,  you  front  the  Cana- 
da shore.  But  the  name  dies  along  your  mind 
almost  without  echo,  even  as  your  voice  might  call 
into  those  dark  forests,  but  melt  from  them  no  human 


94  LOTUS-EATING. 

response.  Canada!  The  name  is  a  mist  in  the 
mind.  Slowly  and  vaguely  a  few  remembrances 
shape  themselves.  Shadowy  and  terrible  traditions 
of  hopeless  and  heartless  Indian  wars,  which  tapped 
the  choicest  veins  of  French  and  English  blood,  but 
gave  no  glory  in  return,  half  tell  themselves  in  the 
mind,  like  the  croning  of  a  beldame  in  the  chimney 
corner. 

Slowly  from  the  red  mist  of  that  vague  remem- 
brance rise  the  names  of  Wolfe  and  Montgomery  and 
Montcalm,  heroes  where  heroism  little  availed,  for 
the  Indian  element  mingled  in  the  story,  and  where 
the  Indian  is,  there  nobility  and  chivalry  are  not. 
You  look  across  the  rapids  upon  a  country  which  has 
made  no  mark  in  history ;  where  few  men  love  to 
live,  except  those  who  have  little  choice ;  where  the 
towns  are  stagnant  and  few ;  upon  a  country  whose 
son  no  man  is  proud  to  be,  and  the  barrenness  of  the 
impression  somewhat  colors  your  feelings  of  Niagara, 
for  the  American  shore  is  wild  too,  although  the 
zealous  activity  of  the  little  village  at  the  Falls,  and 
the  white  neatness  of  Lewiston,  below,  relieve  the 
sense  of  desolation  upon  the  distant  banks. 

The  beauty  of  Niagara  is  in  its  immediate  neigh 
borhood.  It  is  upon  Goat  Island — upon  the  cliffs 
over  which  hangs  the  greenest  verdure — in  the  trees 
that  lean  out  and  against  the  Eapids,  as  if  the  forest 


NIAGARA. 


95 


were  ena- 
mored of 
the  waters, 

and  which  overhang  and  ^ 
dip,   suffering  their  youngest' 
and  softest  leaves  to  thrill  in 

the  trembling  frenzy  of  the  touch)  \  ,  t 

M^_ 
of  Niagara.     It  is  in  the  vivid  con-iVVF( 

trast  of  the  repose  of  lofty  trees  and  j! ' 


the  whirl  of  a  living  river — and  in  the 
contrast,  more  singular  and  subtle,  of  twinkling, 
shimmering  leaves,  and  the  same  magnificent  mad- 
ness. It  is  in  the  profuse  and  splendid  play  of  col- 
ors in  and  around  the  Cataract,  and  in  the  thousand 
evanescent  fancies  which  wreathe  its  image  in  the 
mind  as  the  sparkling  vapor  floats,  a  rainbow,  around 
the  reality.  It  is  in  the  flowers  that  grow  quietly 
along  the  edges  of  the  precipices,  to  the  slightest  of 


96  LOTUS-EATING. 

which  one  drop  of  the  clouds  of  spray  that  curl  from 
the  seething  abyss  is  the  sufficient  elixir  of  a  long 
and  lovely  life. 

Yet — for  we  must  look  the  Alpine  comparison 
which  is  suggested  to  every  one  who  knows  Switzer- 
land, fairly  in  the  face — the  Alps  are  more  terrible 
than  Niagara.  The  movement  and  roar  of  the  Cata- 
ract, and  the  facility  of  approach  to  the  very  plunge, 
relieve  the  crushing  sense  of  awfulness  which  the 
silent,  inaccessible,  deadly  solitudes  of  the  high  Alps 
inspire.  The  war  of  an  avalanche  heard  in  those 
solemn  heights,  because  beginning  often  and  ending 
beyond  the  point  that  human  feet  may  ever  tread,  is 
a  sound  of  dread  and  awe  like  that  of  the  mysterious 
movement  of  another  world,  heard  through  the  si- 
lence of  our  own. 

Besides,  where  trees  grow,  there  human  sympathy 
lingers.  Doubtless  it  is  the  supreme  beauty  of  the 
edges  of  Niagara,  which  often  causes  travellers  to 
fancy  that  they  are  disappointed,  as  if  in  Semiramis 
they  should  see  more  of  the  woman  than  of  the  queen. 
But,  climbing  the  Alps,  you  leave  trees  below.  They 
shrink  and  retire.  They  lose  their  bloom  and  beauty. 
They  decline  from  tenderness  into  toughness  ;  from 
delicate,  shifting  hues  into  sombre  evergreen — dark- 
er and  more  solemn,  until  they  are  almost  black, 
until  they  are  dwarfed  and  scant  and  wretched,  and 


NIAGARA.  97 

are  finally  seen  no  more.  With  the  trees,  you  leave 
the  sights  and  sounds  and  sentiments  of  life.  The 
Alpine  peaks  are  the  ragged  edges  of  creation,  half 
blent  with  chaos.  Upon  them,  inaccessible  forever, 
in  the  midst  of  the  endless  murmur  of  the  world, 
antemundane  silence  lies  stranded,  like  the  corse  of 
an  antediluvian  upon  a  solitary  rock-point  in  the  sea. 
Painfully  climbing  toward  those  heights  you  may 
feel,  with  the  fascination  of  wonder  and  awe,  that 
you  look,  as  the  Chinese  say,  behind  the  beginning. 

But  if  the  Alps  are  thus  death,  Niagara  is  life  ; 
and  you  know  which  is  the  more  terrible.  It  is  a 
life,  however,  which  you  are  to  observe  in  many 
ways — from  below,  from  above,  from  the  sides,  from 
the  suspension  bridge,  and,  finally,  you  must  steam 
up  to  its  very  front,  and  then  climb  down  behind  it. 

These  two  latter  excursions  are  by  no  means  to  be 
omitted.  The  little  steamer  leaves  the  shore  by  the 
suspension  bridge,  and,  gliding  with  effort  into  the 
current  of  the  river,  you  remember  that  there  is  the 
Cataract  before  and  the  whirlpool  behind,  and  sheer 
rocky  precipices  on  each  side.  But  there  is  only  gay 
gossip  and  pleasant  wonder  all  around  you,  the 
morning  is  mild,  and  the  Falls  flash  like  a  plunge 
of  white  flame.  Slowly,  slowly,  tugs  the  little  boat 
against  the  stream.  She  hugs  the  shore,  rocky- 
hearted,  stiff,  straight,  prim  old  puritan  of  a  shore 

E 


98  LOTUS-EATING. 

that  it  is,  although  it  is  wreathed  and  crowned  with 
graceful  foliage. 

Presently  comes  a  puff  of  cool  spray.  Is  it  a 
threat,  a  kiss,  or  a  warning  from  our  terrible  bourne  ? 
The  fussy  little  captain  exhorts  every  body  to  wrap 
in  a  water-proof  cloak  and  cap ;  we  shall  else  be 
soaked  through  and  through,  as  we  were  never  soaked 
by  shower  before.  But  some  of  us,  beautiful  daugh- 
ters of  a  mother  famously  fair,  love  our  looks,  and 
would  fain  enjoy  every  thing  without  making  our- 
selves less  lovely.  , 

"Pooh,  pooh!"  insists  our  captain,  "I  wouldn't 
give  three  cents  for  them  'ere  bunnets,  (our  choice 
travelling  hats  !)  if  they  once  get  wet." 

So  we  consent  to  cloaks,  but  we  positively  decline 
India-rubber  caps,  especially  after  an  advance  to  six 
cents  by  a  gallant  friend  upon  the  captain's  bid  for 
our  "  bunnets."  The  men  must  shift  for  themselves. 
Here  we  are  in  the  roar  and  the  rush  and  the  spray. 
"Whew !  it  drives,  it  sweeps,  and  the  steady  thunder 
of  the  Cataract  booms,  cramming  the  air  with  sound. 
Only  a  few  of  us  hold  the  upper  deck.  Nor  are  we, 
who  have  no  mantles,  all  unprotected,  for  shawls 
wont  to  protect  flowers  from  the  summer  wind,  now 
shield  us  from  the  spray  of  Niagara. 

We  sweep  along  upon  our  leaf,  which  quivers  and 
skims  the  foam — sweep  straight  into  the  blinding 


NIAGARA.  99 

white,  thick,  suffocating  mist  of  the  Cataract,  strain 
our  eyes,  as  we  gasp,  for  the  curve  of  the  Fall,  for 
the  parapet  above,  and  in  a  sudden  break  of  the 
cloud,  through  which  breathes  cold  the  very  air  of 
the  rush  of  waters,  we  catch  a  glorious  glimpse  of 
a  calm  ocean  pouring  white  and  resistless  from  the 
blue  sky  above  into  the  white  clouds  below,  and  be- 
hold the  very  image  of  that  Mind's  process  whose 
might 

<{  Moves  on 

His  undisturbed  affairs." 

% 

I  glance  backward  upon  the  deck,  which  is  raked 
by  the  scudding  gusts  of  spray,  and  see  a  line  of  wet 
men  crouching  together,  like  a  group  of  Esquimaux, 
with  their  faces  upturned  toward  the  Fall.  They  sit 
motionless,  and  staring,  and  appalled,  like  a  troop  in 
Dante's  Inferno.  But  straight  before  us — good  God  ! 
pilot,  close  under  the  bow  there,  looming  through  the 
mist !  Are  you  blind  ?  are  you  mad  ?  or  does  the 
Cataract  mock  our  feeble  power,  and  will  claim  its 
victims  ?  A  black  rock,  ambushed  in  the  surge  and 
spray,  lowers  before  us.  We  are  driving  straight 
upon  it — we  all  see  it,  but  we  do  not  speak.  "We 
fancy  that  the  boat  will  not  obey — that  the  due  fate 
shall  reward  this  terrific  trifling.  Straight  before  us, 
a  boat's  length  away,  and  lo !  swerving  with  the  cur- 
rent around  the  rock,  on  and  farther,  with  felicitous 


100  LOTUS-EATING. 

daring,  the  little  "Maid  of  the  Mist"  dances  up  to 
the  very  foot  of  the  Falls,  wrapping  herself  saucily 
in  the  rainbow  robe  of  its  own  mist.  There  we  trem- 
ble, in  perfect  security,  mocking  with  our  little  Maid 
the  might  of  Niagara.  For  man  is  the  magician, 
and  as  he  plants  his  foot  upon  the  neck  of  mountains, 
and  passes  the  awful  Alps,  safely  as  the  Israelites 
through  the  divided  sea,  so  he  dips  his  hand  into 
Niagara,  and  gathering  a  few  drops  from  its  waters, 
educes  a  force  from  Niagara  itself,  by  which  he  con- 
fronts and  defies  it.  The  very  water  which  ^s  steam 
was  moving  us  to  the  Cataract,  had  plunged  over  it 
as  spray  a  few  hours  before. 

— Or  go,  some  bright  morning  down  the  Bid  die 
staircase,  and  creeping  along  under  the  cliff,  change 
your  dress  at  the  little  house  by  the  separate  sheet 
of  the  American  Fall.  The  change  made,  we  shall 
reappear  like  exhausted  firemen,  or  Swampscot  fish- 
ermen. Some  of  us  will  not  insist  upon  our  "  bun- 
nets"  but  will  lay  them  aside  and  join  the  dilapidated 
firemen  and  fishermen  outside  the  house,  as  Bloom- 
erized  Undines,  mermaids,  or  naiads.  A  few  de- 
scending steps  of  rock,  and  we  have  reached  the 
perpendicular  wooden  staircase  that  leads  under  the 
Fall.  Do  not  stop — do  not  pause  to  look  affrighted 
down  into  that  whirring  cauldron  of  cold  mist,  where 
the  winds  dart,  blinding,  in  arrowy  gusts.  Now  we 


NIAGARA.  101 

see  the  platform  across  the  bottom — now  a  cloud  of 
mist  blots  it  out.  And  it  roars  so  ! 

Come,  Fishermen,  Mermaids,  Naiads,  Firemen 
and  Undine,  down  !  down  !  Cling  to  the  railing  ! 
Lean  on  me  !  Thou  gossamer  blossom  which  the 
softest  summer  zephyr  would  thrill,  whither  will 
these  mad  gales  beneath  the  Cataract  whirl  thee  ! 
We  are  here  upon  the  narrow  platform ;  it  is  railed 
upon  each  side,  and  the  drops  dash  like  sleet,  like 
acute  hail,  against  our  faces.  The  swift  sweep  of 
the  water  across  the  floor  would  slide  us  also  into  the 
yawning  gulf  beyond,  but  clinging  with  our  hands, 
we  move  securely  as  in  calm  airs.  And  now  look 
up,  for  you  stand  directly  beneath  the  arching  water, 
directly  under  the  fall.  The  rock  is  hollowed,  and 
the  round  pebbles  on  the  ground  rush  and  rattle  with 
the  sliding  water  as  on  the  sea-beach.  You  leave 
the  platform,  you  climb  between  two  rocks,  and  slid- 
ing along  a  staging,  unstable  almost  as  the  water, 
yet  quite  firm  enough,  you  stand  directly  upon  the 
rocks,  and  Niagara  plunges  and  tumbles  above  you 
and  around  you. 

There  at  sunset,  and  only  there,  you  may  see  three 
circular  rainbows,  one  within  another.  For  Niagara 
has  unimagined  boons  for  her  lovers — rewards  of 
beauty  so  profound  that  she  enjoins  silence  as  the 
proof  of  fidelity. 


102  LOTUS-EATING. 

Keturning,  there  is  an  overhanging  shelf  of  rock, 
and  there,  except  that  it  is  cold  and  wet,  you  sit  se- 
cluded from  the  spray.  It  is  a  lonely  cave,  curtained 
from  the  sun  by  the  Cataract,  forever.  And  if  still 
your  daring  is  untamed,  you  may  climb  over  slippery 
rocks  in  the  blinding  mist  and  the  deafening  roar, 
and  feel  yourself  as  far  under  the  Great  American 
Fall  as  human  foot  may  venture. 

I  must  stop.  If  you  have  been  at  Niagara,  what 
I  have  written  may  recall  it,  but  can  hardly  paint, 
except  to  remembrance,  the  austere  grandeur  and 
dreamy  beauties  which  are  its  characteristics.  Your 
few  days  there  are  days  upon  the  river  bank,  walk- 
ing and  wondering.  Your  frail  fancies  of  it  are 
swallowed  up  as  they  rise,  like  chance  flowers  flung 
upon  its  current.  Many  a  man  to  whom  Niagara 
has  been  a  hope,  and  an  inspiration,  and  who  has 
stood  before  its  majesty  awe-stricken  and  hushed, 
secretly  wonders  that  his  words  describing  it  are  not 
pictures  and  poems.  But  any  great  natural  object — 
a  cataract,  an  Alp,  a  storm  at  sea — are  seed  too  vast 
for  any  sudden  flowering.  They  lie  in  experience 
moulding  life.  At  length  the  pure  peaks  of  noble 
aims  and  the  broad  flow  of  a  generous  manhood 
betray  that  in  some  happy  hour  of  youth  you  have 
seen  the  Alps  and  Niagara. 


SARATOGA, 


VII. 


AUGUST. 

ILT  thou  be  a  nun,  Sophie  7 

Nothing  but  a  nun  7 
Is  it  not  a  better  thing 
With  thy  friends  to  laugh  and  sing  7 
To  be  loved  and  sought  7 

To  be  wooed  and — won  7 
Dost  thou  love  the  shadow,  Sophie  7 
Better  than  the  sun  7 

ROMANCE  is  the  necessary 
association  of  watering-places,  because  they  are  the 
haunts  of  youth  and  beauty  seeking  pleasure.  When 
on  some  opaline  May  day  you  drive  out  from  Naples 
to  Baise,  the  Saratoga  of  old  Rome,  and  in  the  golden 
light  of  the  waning  afternoon  drink  Falernian  while 
you  look  upon  the  vineyards  where  it  ripened  for 
Horace,  your  fancy  is  thronged  with  the  images  of 
Romance,  and  you  could  listen  to  catch  some  echo 
of  a  long  silent  love-song,  lingering  in  the  air. 

It  is  a  kind  of  sentimentality  inseparable  from  the 


106  LOTUS-EATING. 

spot — a  pensive  reverie  into  which  few  men  are  loth 
to  fall ;  for  its  atmosphere  is  "  the  light  that  never  was 
on  sea  or  land."  Yet  romance,  like  a  ghost,  eludes 
touching.  It  is  always  where  you  were,  not  where 
you  are.  The  interview  or  the  conversation  was 
prose  at  the  time,  but  it  is  poetry  in  memory. 

Thus  persons  of  poetic  feeling  speak  of  people  and 
events  as  if  they  were  the  figures  of  a  romance  and 
are  laughed  at  for  seeing  every  thing  through  their 
imagination.  But  why  is  it  not  as  pleasant  to  see 
through  imagination  as  through  scepticism  ?  Why, 
because  people  are  bad,  should  I  be  faithless  of  the 
virtues  of  a  beautiful  woman  ? 

Life  is  the  best  thing  we  can  possibly  make  of  it. 
It  is  dull  and  dismal  and  heavy,  if  a  man  loses  his 
temper  :  it  is  glowing  with  promise  and  satisfaction 
if  he  is  not  ashamed  of  his  emotions.  Young  America 
is  very  anxious  to  be  a  man  of  the  world.  He  has 
heard  that  in  England  a  gentleman  is  a  being  of 
sublime  indifference,  who  has  exhausted  all  varieties 
of  experience — who  has,  in  fact,  opened  the  oyster 
of  the  world.  So  Young  America  cultivates  non- 
chalance with  the  ladies,  and  cannot  help  it  if  he 
does  know  every  thing  that  is  worth  knowing.  To 
every  man  of  thought  and  perception  he  is  the  miser- 
able travesty  of  a  human  being,  whose  social  life  is 
an  injustice  and  an  insult  to  every  woman. 


SARATOGA.  107 

He  does  not  see  that  indifference  is  satiety — that 
it  is  the  weakness  of  a  man  whom  circumstances 
have  mastered,  and  not  the  sensitive  calmness,  like  a 
lake's  surface,  of  profound  and  digested  experience. 
What  is  the  charm  of  a  belle  but  her  purely  natural 
manners  ?  And  they  are  charming,  not  in  themselves, 
but  because  they  harmonize  with  her  nature  and 
character.  Yet  if  another  person  imitates  her  man- 
ners in  the  hope  of  being  a  belle,  the  result  is  at  once 
ludicrous  and  painful.  But  such  musings,  however 
suggested  by  the  place,  I  fancy  you  will  consider  the 
sand  barren  in  which  Saratoga  lies. 

The  romance  of  a  watering-place,  like  other  ro- 
mance, always  seems  past  when  you  are  there.  Here 
at  Saratoga,  when  the  last  polka  is  polked,  and  the 
last  light  in  the  ball-room  is  extinguished,  you  saun- 
ter along  the  great  piazza,  with  the  "  good  night"  of 
Beauty  yet  trembling  upon  your  lips,  and  meet  some 
old  Habitue*,  or  even  a  group  of  them,  smoking  in 
lonely  arm-chairs,  and  meditating  the  days  departed. 

The  great  court  is  dark  and  still.  The  waning 
moon  is  rising  beyond  the  trees,  but  does  not  yet 
draw  their  shadows,  moonlight-mosaics,  upon  the 
lawn.  There  are  no  mysterious  couples  moving  in 
the  garden,  not  a  solitary  foot-fall  upon  the  piazza. 
A  few  lanterns  burn  dimly  about  the  doors,  and  the 
light  yet  lingering  in  a  lofty  chamber  reminds  you 


108  LOTUS-EATING. 

that  some  form,  whose  grace  this  evening  has  made 
memory  a  festival,  is  robing  itself  for  dreams. 

If  courtly  Edmund  Waller  were  with  you,  it  would 
not  be  hard  to  tempt  him  to  step  with  you  across  the 
court  to  serenade  under  that  window,  with  the  most 
musical  and  genuine  of  his  verses. 

Go,  lovely  Rose ! 
Tell  her  who  wastes  her  time  and  me, 

That  now  she  knows, 
When  I  resemble  her  to  thee, 
How  sweet  and  fair  she  seems  to  be. 

Tell  her  that 's  young, 
And  shuns  to  have  her  graces  spied, 

That  hadst  thou  sprung 
In  deserts  where  no  men  abide, 
Thou  must  have  uncommended  died. 

Small  is  the  worth 
Of  beauty  from  the  light  retired ; 

Bid  her  come  forth, 
Suffer  herself  to  be  desired, 
And  not  blush  so  to  be  admired. 

Then  die  !  that  she 
The  common  fate  of  all  things  rare 

May  read  in  thee  — 
How  small  a  part  of  time  they  share, 
That  are  so  wondrous  sweet  and  fair. 

He  not  being  at  Saratoga  this  year  you  are  con- 
tent with  looking  across  the  court  and  remembering 
his  song.  The  moonlight  softens  your  heart  as  did 
the  golden  days  at  Baise.  You,  too,  seat  yourself  in 
a  lonely  arm-chair,  and  your  reveries  harmonize  with 


SARATOGA.  109 

the  melancholy  minor  of  the  old  Habitue's  reflections. 
You  speak  to  him,  musingly,  of  the  "  lovely  Rose" 
who  wastes  her  time  and  you. 

"Yes,"  he  responds,  "but  you  should  have  seen 
Saratoga  in  her  mother's  days." 

And  while  the  moon  rides  higher,  and  pales  from 
the  yellow  of  her  rising  into  a  watery  lustre,  you 
hear  stories  of  blooming  belles,  who  are  grandmoth- 
ers now,  and  of  brilliant  beaux,  bald  now  and  gouty. 
These  midnight  gossips  are  very  mournful.  They 
will  not  suffer  you  to  leave  those,  whose  farewells  yet 
thrill  your  heart,  in  the  eternal  morning  of  youth,  but 
compel  you  to  forecast  their  doom,  to  draw  sad  and 
strange  outlines  upon  the  future — to  paint  pictures 
of  age,  wrinkles,  ochre-veined  hands  and  mobcaps — 
until  your  Saratoga  episode  of  pleasure  has  sombreed 
into  an  Egyptian  banquet,  with  your  old,  silently- 
smoking,  and  meditative  Habitue*  for  the  death's 
head. 

Nor  is  it  strange  that  you  should  then  repeat  to 
him  Charles  Lamb's  "  Gipsy's  Malison,"  with  its  fan- 
tastic, Egyptian-like  sternness. 

Suck,  baby,  suck,  mother's  love  grows  by  giving, 
Drain  the  sweet  founts  that  only  thrive  by  wasting; 
Black  manhood  comes,  when  riotous,  guilty  living 
Hands  thee  the  cup  that  shall  be  death  in  tasting. 

Kiss,  baby,  kiss,  mother's  lips  shine  by  kisses, 

Choke  the  warm  breath  that  else  would  fall  in  blessings ; 


110  LOTUS-EATING. 

Black  manhood  comes,  when  turbulent,  guilty  blisses 
Tends  thee  the  kiss  that  poisons  mid  caressings. 

Hang,  baby,  hang,  mother's  love  loves  such  forces, 
Shame  the  fond  neck  that  bends  still  to  thy  clinging. 
Black  manhood  comes,  when  violent  lawless  courses 
Leave  thee  a  spectacle  in  rude  air  swinging. 

In  fact,  after  a  few  such  midnights,  even  the  morn- 
ing sunshine  cannot  melt  away  this  Egyptian  char- 
acter from  the  old  Habitue's.  As  you  cross  the  court, 
after  breakfast,  to  the  bowling  alley,  with  a  bevy  so 
young  and  lovely,  that  age  and  mob-caps  seem  only 
fantastic  visions  of  dyspepsia,  and,  of  hearts  that 
were  never  young,  you  will  see  them  sitting,  a  solemn 
reality  of  "  black  manhood,"  along  the  western  piaz- 
za, leaning  back  in  arm-chairs,  smoking  perhaps, 
chatting  of  stocks  possibly, — a  little  rounded  in  the 
shoulders,  holding  canes  which  are  no  longer  foppish 
switches,  but  substantial  and  serious  supports.  They 
are  the  sub-bass  in  the  various- voiced  song,  the  pro- 
saic notes  to  the  pleasant  lyric  of  Saratoga  life. 

They  are  not  really  thinking  of  stocks,  nor  are 
they  very  conscious  of  the  flavor  of  their  cigars,  but 
they  watch  the  scene  as  they  would  dream  a  dream. 
As  the  sound  of  young  voices  pulses  toward  them  on 
the  morning  air,  as  they  watch  the  flitting  forms,  the 
cool  morning-dresses,  the  gush  of  youth  overflowing 
the  sunny  and  shady  paths  of  the  garden,  they  are 
old  Habitue's  no  longer ;  they  are  those  gentlemen, 


SARATOGA.  Ill 

gallant  and  gay,  dancing  in  the  warm  light  of  bright 
eyes  toward  a  future  gorgeous  as  a  sunset,  gossipping 
humorously  or  seriously,  according  as  the  light  of 
eyes  is  sunshine  or  moonlight,  and  it  is  themselves  as 
they  were,  with  their  own  parties,  their  own  loves, 
jealousies  and  scandals,  moving  briskly  across  the 
garden  to  the  bowling  alley. 

We  pass, — butterflies  of  this  summer, — and  the 
vision  fades  upon  their  eyes.  It  was  only  the  image 
of  dead  days,  only  the  Fata  Morgana  of  the  en- 
chanted islands  they  shall  see  no  more,  only  the 
ghosts  of  grace  and  beauty,  that  witched  the  world 
for  their  youth. 

"  The  mossy  marbles  rest 
On  the  lips  that  they  have  pressed 

In  their  bloom, 

And  the  names  they  loved  to  hear 
Have  been  carved  for  many  a  year 

On  the  tomb." 

"We  stroll  down  the  street  to  Congress  Hall,  we 
make  a  pilgrimage  to  the  piazza,  which  was  the 
Saratoga  of  our  reading  and  romance — to  Congress 
Hall,  across  whose  smooth-columned  piazza  we  pass, 
to  pay  the  tribute  of  our  homage  to  the  spot  where 
so  much  love  beat  in  warm  hearts  and  blushed  in 
beautiful  cheeks.  For  when  Saratoga  was  first 
fashionable,  Congress  Hall  was  the  temple  of  fashion. 

If  you  observe,  while  "we  youth"  (as  Falstaff 


112  LOTUS-EATING. 

would  say,  were  he  an  old  Habitue^,)  are  grieving 
that  the  romance  is  gone,  and  are  regretting  its  going 
to  the  companion  of  our  promenade,  and  are  sitting, 
meditative  and  melancholy,  with  the  Habitue's  at 
midnight,  we  are  all  the  while,  and  therein,  tasting 
quite  as  sparkling  a  draught  of  romance  as  ever  our 
revered  grandparents  quaffed.  And  no  sooner  have 
the  doors  of  the  "  United  States"  clanged  awful  upon 
our  departure,  than  sad  and  sweet  faces  of  remem- 
brance look  from  all  the  windows,  and  in  the  young, 
feminine  fancy,  when  Saratoga  is  once  left  behind, 
the  great  hotel  stands  shining  like  a  transfigured 
palace  of  fairy. 

Be  assured,  Saratoga  is  still  a  golden-clasped,  il- 
luminated romance  for  summer  reading.  Young 
men  still  linger,  loth  to  fly,  and  when  the  trunk  must 
be  packed,  they  yet  sit  gossipping  upon  the  edge  of 
the  bed,  and  were  you  under  it,  you  would  hear  how 
every  Tom  Thumb,  or  Prince  Riquet  with  the  tuft, 
was  the  most  chivalric  and  resistless  of  King  Arthurs  ; 
what  innumerable  fair-haired  Preciosas  were  wonder- 
ing at  the  same  wonderful  Arthurs  ;  and  how  many 
a  Fatima  has  been  rescued,  or  at  least  was  clearly 
ready  to  be  rescued,  from  unpolking,  stock-jobbing, 
mercantile  old  Blue  Beards.  Then,  gorged  with  ex- 
perience, blase*  of  the  world,  patronising  and  endur- 
ing life,  the  royal  Arthurs,  scorning  the  heaps  of 


SARATOGA.  113 

broken  hearts  they  leave  behind,  transfer  themselves 
and  their  boots  to  a  new  realm  of  conquest  at  New- 
port, and  reduce  the  most  impregnable  heart  with  a 
Redowa,  or  a  fatally  fascinating  Schottish. 

But  while  we  laugh  at  Saratoga,  its  dancing,  dress- 
ing, and  flirtation,  it  is  yet  a  "  coign  of  vantage"  for 
an  observing  eye.  It  is  not  all  dress  and  dancing. 
Like  every  aspect  of  life,  and  like  most  persons,  it  is 
a  hint  and  suggestion  of  someting  high  and  poetic. 
It  is  an  oasis  of  repose  in  the  desert  of  our  American 
hurry.  Life  is  leisurely  there,  and  business  is  amuse- 
ment. 

It  is  perpetual  festival.  The  "  United 
States"  is  the  nearest  hit  wec 
Americans  can  make  to  Boc-y 
cacio's  garden.  It  is  a  i 
cious  house,  admirably^ 
kept,  with  a  stately  pi-" 
azza  surrounding  2. 
smooth  green  lawn, 
constantly  close-shaven,1! 
and  shadowed  withj 
lofty  trees.  Along  that 
stately  piazza  we  pass  to  the  ball- 
room, and  cross  that  lawn  under  those  trees  to  the 
bowling-alley,  and  the  place  of  spirits.  We  rise  and 
breakfast  at  any  time.  Then  we  chat  a  little  and 


114  LOTUS-EATING. 

bowl  till  noon.  If  you  choose,  you  may  sit  apart  and 
converse,  instead  of  bowling,  upon  metaphysics  and 
morals.  At  noon,  we  must  return  to  the  parlor  and 
practice  the  polka  which  we  have  not  danced  since 
yesterday  midnight.  There  are  sofas  and  comforta- 
ble chairs  strewn  around  the  room,  and,  if  you  have 
reached  no  metaphysical  conclusion,  in  the  bowling- 
alley,  you  may  wish  to  continue  your  chat.  "We 
ladies  must  go  shopping  after  the  polka,  and  we  mere 
men  may  go  to  the  bath.  Dinner  then,  in  our  semi- 
toilettes,  feeing  Ambrose  and  Anthony  to  get  us 
something  to  eat,  and  watching  the  mighty  Morris, 
in  an  endless  frenzy  of  excitement,  tearing  his  hair, 
whenever  a  plate,  loud-crashing,  shivers  on  the  floor. 
After  dinner  the  band  plays  upon  the  lawn,  and 
we  all  promenade  upon  the  piazza,  or  in  the  walks 
of  the  court,  or  sit  at  the  parlor  windows.  We  dis- 
cuss the  new  arrivals.  We  criticise  dresses,  and 
styles,  and  manners.  We  discriminate  the  arctic 
and  antarctic  Bostonians,  fair,  still,  and  stately,  with 
a  vein  of  scorn  in  their  Saratoga  enjoyment,  and  the 
languid,  cordial,  and  careless  Southerners,  far  from 
precise  in  dress  or  style,  but  balmy  in  manner  as  a 
bland  southern  morning.  We  mark  the  crisp  cour- 
tesy of  the  New  Yorker,  elegant  in  dress,  exclusive 
in  association,  a  pallid  ghost  of  Paris — without  its 
easy  elegance,  its  bonhommie,  its  gracious  savior 


SARATOGA.  115 

faire,  without  the  spirituel  sparkle  of  its  conversa- 
tion, and  its  natural  and  elastic  grace  of  style.  We 
find  that  a  Parisian  toilette  is  not  France,  nor  grace, 
nor  fascination.  We  discover  that  exclusiveness  is 
not  elegance. 

But  while  we  mark  and  moralize,  the  last  strain  of 
Lucia  or  Ernani  has  died  away,  and  it  is  5  o'clock. 
A  crowd  of  carriages  throngs  the  street  before  the 
door,  there  is  a  flutter  through  the  hall,  a  tripping 
up  and  down  stairs,  and  we  are  bowling  along  to  the 
lake.  There  is  but  one  drive :  every  body  goes  to 
the  lake.  And  no  sooner  have  we  turned  by  the 
Congress  Spring,  than  we  are  in  the  depths  of  the 
country,  in  a  long,  level  reach  of  pines,  with  a  few 
distant  hills  of  the  Green  Mountains  rolling  along 
the  horizon.  It  is  a  city  gala  at  the  hotel,  but  the 
five  minutes  were  magical,  and  among  the  pines 
upon  the  road  we  remember  the  city  and  its  life  as  a 
winter  dream. 

The  vivid  and  sudden  contrast  of  this  little  drive 
with  the  hotel,  is  one  of  the  pleasantest  points  of 
Saratoga  life.  In  the  excitement  of  the  day,  it  is 
like  stepping  out  on  summer  evenings  from  the  glar- 
ing ball-room  upon  the  cool  and  still  piazza. 

There  is  a  range  of  carriages  at  the  Lake.  A  se- 
lect party  is  dining  upon  those  choice  trouts,  black 
bass  and  young  woodcock — various  other  select  par- 


116 


LOTUS-EATING. 


ties  are  scattered  about  upon  the  banks  or  on  the 
piazza,  watching  the  sails  and  sipping  cobblers.  The 
descent  to  the  Lake  is  very  steep,  and  the  smooth 
water  is  dotted  with  a  few  boats  gliding  under  the 
low,  monotonous  banks.  The  afternoon  is  tranquil, 
the  light  is  tender,  the  air  is  soft,  and  the  lapping 
of  the  water  upon  the  pebbly  shore  is  haply  not  so 
musical  as  words  spoken  upon  its  surface. 

In  the  sunset  we  bowl  back  again  to  the  hotel.  1 
saw  most  autumnal  sunsets  at  Saratoga,  cold  and 
gorgeous,  like  the  splendor  of  October  woods.  They 
were  still  and  solemn  over  the  purple  hills  of  the 
horizon,  and  their  light  looked  strangely  in  at  the 
windows  of  the  hotel.  Many  a  belle,  just  arrived 
from  the  drive  and  about  to  consider  the  evening's 


SARATOGA.  117 

» 

dressing,  paused  a  moment  at  the  window,  stood  re- 
splendent in  that  dying  light,  and  a  shade  of  melan- 
choly touched  her  lithe  fancies,  as  a  cloud  dims  the 
waving  of  golden  grain.  Who  had  stood  there  to 
dress  for  a  Saratoga  ball  years  ago  ?  Who  should 
stand  there,  dressing,  years  to  come  ?  This  Saratoga, 
dreamed  of,  wondered  at,  longed  for — where  to  be  a 
belle  was  the  flower  of  human  felicity — whose  walks, 
drives,  hops,  moonlight  talks  and  mornings  should 
be  the  supreme  satisfaction — had  it  fulfilled  its 
promise  ? 

This  moment  not  Waller  should  speak  to  her  but 
Wordsworth,  with  pensive  music  : 

Look  at  the  fate  of  summer  flowers, 
Which  blow  at  daybreak,  droop  ere  even-song : 
And,  grieved  for  their  brief  date,  confess  that  ours 
Measured  by  what  we  are  and  ought  to  be, 
Measured  by  all  that,  trembling,  we  foresee, 
Is  not  so  long! 

If  human  life  do  pass  away, 

•         Perishing,  yet  more  swiftly  than  the  flower, 
Whose  frail  existence  is  but  of  a  day : 
What  space  hath  Virgin's  beauty  to  disclose 
Her  sweets,  and  triumph  o'er  the  breathing  rose, 
Not  even  an  hour ! 

The  deepest  grove  whose  foliage  hid 
The  happiest  lovers  Arcady  might  boast, 
Could  not  the  entrance  of  this  thought  forbid : 
0  be  thou  wise  as  they,  soul-gifted  maid! 
Nor  rate  too  high  what  must  so  quickly  fade, 
So  soon  be  lost! 


118  LOTUS-EATING. 

Then  shall  Love  teach  some  virtuous  youth 
"  To  draw  out  of  the  object  of  his  eyes" 
The  whilst  on  thee  they  gaze  in  simple  truth, 
Hues  more  exalted,  "  a  refined  form," 
That  dreads  not  age,  nor  suffers  from  the  worm, 
And  never  dies ! 

— She  comes  at  last.  The  sun  has  set,  and  with  it 
those  weird  fancies,  those  vague  thoughts  that 
streamed  shapelessly  through  her  mind  like  these 
long,  sad  vapors  through  the  twilight  sky.  Nor,  for 
that  moment,  is  the  belle  less  gay,  though  more  beau- 
tiful, nor  is  Saratoga  less  charming. 

Music  flows  towards  us  from  the  ball-room  in  lan- 
guid, luxurious  measures,  like  warm,  voluptuous  arms 
wreathing  around  us  and  drawing  us  to  the  dance. 
When  we  enter  the  hall  we  find  very  few  people,  but 
at  the  lower  end  a  sprinkling  of  New  Torklings  are 
in  their  heaven. 

Dancing  is  natural  and  lovely  as  singing.  The 
court  of  youth  and  beauty — with  the  presence  of 
brilliantly  dressed  women,  and  an  air  smoothed  anfl 
softened  with  delicate  and  penetrating  perfumes,  and 
the  dazzling  splendor  of  lights,  is  a  song  unsung,  a 
flower  not  blossomed,  until  you  mingle  in  movement 
with  the  strain — until  the  scene  is  so  measured  by 
the  music  that  they  become  one.  This  has  been  said 
so  finely  by  De  Quincey  that  I  cannot  refrain  from 
enriching  my  pages  with  the  quotation : 


SAKATOGA.  119 

"  And  in  itself,  of  all  the  scenes  which  this  world 
offers,  none  is  to  me  so  profoundly  interesting,  none 
(I  say  deliberately)  so  affecting,  as  the  spectacle  of 
men  and  women  floating  through  the  mazes  of  a 
dance;  under  these  conditions,  however,  that  the 
music  shall  be  rich  and  festal,  the  execution  of  the 
dancers  perfect,  and  the  dance  itself  of  a  character 
to  admit  of  free,  fluent  and  continuous  motion.  *  *  * 
And  wherever  the  music  happens  to  be  not  of  a  light, 
trivial  character,  but  charged  with  the  spirit  of  festal 
pleasure,  and  the  performers  in  the  dance  so  far 
skilful  as  to  betray  no  awkwardness  verging  on  the 
ludicrous,  I  believe  that  many  persons  feel  as  I  feel 
in  such  circumstances,  viz. :  derive  from  the  spectacle 
the  very  grandest  form  of  passionate  sadness  which 
can  belong  to  any  spectacle  whatsoever.  *  *  * 
From  all  which  the  reader  may  comprehend,  if  he 
should  not  happen  experimentally  to  have  felt,  that  a 
spectacle  of  young  men  and  women  flowing  through 
tlfe  mazes  of  an  intricate  dance,  under  a  full  volume 
of  music,  taken  with  all  the  circumstantial  adjuncts 
of  such  a  scene  in  rich  men's  halls,  the  blaze  of  lights 
and  jewels,  the  life,  the  motion,  the  sea-like  undula- 
tion of  heads,  the  interweaving  of  the  figures,  the  ana- 
Ttuklosis,  or  self-revolving,  both  of  the  dance  and  the 
music ;  never  ending,  still  beginning,  and  the  con- 
tinual regeneration  of  order  from  a  system  of  motions 


120  LOTUS-EATING. 

which  seem  forever  to  approach  the  very  brink  of 
confusion  ;  that  such  a  spectacle,  with  such  circum- 
stances, may  happen  to  be  capable  of  exciting  and 
sustaining  the  very  grandest  emotions  of  philosophic 
melancholy  to  which  the  human  spirit  is  open.  The 
reason  is  in  part  that  such  a  scene  presents  a  sort  of 
masque  of  human  life,  with  its  whole  equipage  of 
pomps  and  glories,  its  luxuries  of  sight  and  sound, 
its  hours  of  golden  youth,  and  the  interminable  rev- 
olution of  ages  hurrying  after  ages,  and  one  genera- 
tion treading  over  the  flying  footsteps  of  another, 
whilst  all  the  while  the  overruling  music  attempers 
the  mind  to  the  spectacle, — the  subject  (as  a  Ger- 
man would  say)  to  the  object,  the  beholder  to  the 
vision.  And  although  this  is  known  to  be  but  one 
phase  of  life — of  life  culminating  and  in  ascent — yet 
the  other  and  repulsive  phasis  is  concealed  upon  the 
hidden  or  averted  side  of  the  golden  arras,  known 
but  not  felt — or  is  seen  but  dimly  in  the  rear,  crowd- 
ing into  indistinct  proportions.  The  effect  of  the 
music  is  to  place  the  mind  in  a  state  of  elective- 
attraction  for  every  thing  in  harmony  with  its  own 
prevailing  key." 

I  do  not  know  how  far  others  will  acknowledge  the 
justice  of  this  brilliant  passage,  but  to  me  it  gave  a 
thrill  of  satisfaction  when  I  read  it,  as  the  expression 
of  what  is  often  felt  in  such  circumstances.  The  secret 


SARATOGA.  121 

of  the  feeling  is  in  the  entire  harmony  of  the  music 
and  the  movement — it  is  that  the  dancing  is  the  visi- 
ble form  of  the  infinite  and  subtle  suggestions  of  the 
music.  Who  that  has  felt  the  extreme  pathos  of 
Strauss's  Waltzes  but  has  known  them  seem  to  the 
sensitive  imagination,  excited  by  the  grace  and  beau- 
ty of  women  and  the  odorous  brilliancy  of  a  thronged 
hall,  passionate  love-lyrics?  Nor  will  you  be  sur- 
prised, if  you  have  been  haunted  by  their  sadness  as 
you  listened,  and  especially  as  you  danced  to  them, 
to  hear  that  the  best  are  Bohemian  and  Hungarian 
songs,  wrought  into  the  form  of  a  waltz.  The  nation- 
al songs  of  all  people  being  always  in  a  minor  key. 
This  is  a  day  at  Saratoga,  and  all  days  there.  It 
is  a  place  for  pleasure.  The  original  aim  of  a  visit 
thither,  to  drink  the  waters,  is  now  mainly  the  excuse 
of  fathers  and  of  the  Habitue's,  to  whom,  however, 
summer  and  Saratoga  are  synonymous.  It  is  our 
pleasant  social  exchange.  There  we  step  out  of  the 
worn  and  weary  ruts  of  city  society,  and  mingle  in  a 
broad  field  of  various  acquaintance.  There  we  may 
scent  the  fairest  flowers  of  the  south  and  behold  the 
beauty  which  is  ours,  of  which  we  have  a  right  to  be 
proud  in  Italy  and  Spain,  but  which  is  really  less 
familiar  to  most  of  us  northerners  than  Spanish  or 
Italian  beauty.  There,  too,  men  mingle  and  learn 
from  contact  and  sympathy  a  sweeter  temper  and  a 

F 


122  LOTUS-EATING. 

more  Catholic  consideration,  so  that  the  summer 
flowers  we  went  to  wreathe  may  prove  not  the  gar- 
land of  an  hour,  but  the  firmly  linked  chain  of  an 
enduring  union. 

If  you  seek  health,  avoid  it  if  you  can ;  or  if  you 
must  drink  the  waters  there,  take  rooms  in  some  other 
house,  not  in  the  "  United  States,"  where  you  will  be 
tortured  with  the  constant  vision  of  the  carnival  of 
the  high  health  you  have  lost.  Youth,  health  and 
beauty  are  still  the  trinity  of  Saratoga.  No  old  belle 
ever  returns.  No  girl  who  was  beautiful  and  famous 
there,  comes  as  a  grandmother  to  that  gay  haunt. 
The  ghosts  of  her  blooming  days  would  dance  a  dire- 
ful dance  around  her  in  the  moonlight  of  the  court. 
Faces  that  grew  sad,  and  cold,  and  changed,  would 
look  in  at  her  midnight  window.  Phantoms  of  prom- 
enades, when  the  wish  was  spoken  rather  than  the 
feeling,  would  make  her  shudder  as  she  hurried 
along  the  piazza.  The  dull  aching  sense  of  youth 
passed  forever  would  become  suddenly  poignant,  as 
she  glanced  upon  the  gay  groups,  gay  as  she  was 
gay,  young  and  fair  no  more  than  she  had  been. 
Worst  of  all,  if  in  some  lonely  path  she  met  gray- 
haired,  dull-eyed  and  tottering  upon  crutches,  the 
handsome  and  graceful  partner  of  her  first  Saratoga 
season. 

You  will  not  linger  long.     A  week  with  Calypso  is 


SAEATOGA.  123 

all  that  a  wise  Telemachus  will  allow  himself.  But 
he  will  not  be  unjust  to  its  character  nor  deem  it  all 
folly.  And  if,  after  dinner,  you  walk  slowly  through 
the  garden  with  Robert  Herrick  toward  the  railroad, 
by  the  music  and  the  groups  who  listen  to  it,  he, 
watching  their  youth  and  beauty,  will  say  to  them  in 
farewell,  as  he  did 

TO  BLOSSOMS. 

Fair  pledges  of  a  fruitful  tree, 

Why  do  you  fall  so  fast? 

Your  date  is  not  so  past, 
But  you  may  stay  yet  here  awhile 
To  blush  and  gently  smile, 

And  go  at  last. 

What!  were  ye  born  to  be 

An  hour  or  half  s  delight, 

And  so  to  bid  good  night  ? 
'T  was  pity  nature  brought  ye  forth 
Merely  to  show  your  worth, 

And  lose  you  quite. 

But  you  are  lovely  leaves,  where  we 

May  read  how  soon  things  have 

Their  end,  tho'  ne'er  so  brave : 
And  after  they  have  shown  their  pride 
Like  you,  awhile,  they  slide 

Into  the  grave. 


LAKE  GEORGE, 


VIIL 

tab 


AUGUST. 

N  hour  upon  the  railroad  brings  you 
from  Saratoga  to  the  Moreau  Sta- 
tion. Here  you  climb  a  stage- 
coach to  roll  across  the  country  to 
ifLake  George.  It  is  a  fine  strip  of  land- 
^scape  variously  outlined,  and  with  glimpses 
'  beautiful  distance.  The  driver  pointed  out  to 
us  the  tree  under  which  Jane  McOrea  was  murdered 
by  the  Indians — a  lovely  spot,  meet  for  so  sad  a  tra- 
dition. Between  us  and  the  dim-rolling  outline  of 
the  Green  Mountains  were  the  windings  of  the  Hud- 
son, which  here,  in  its  infancy,  is  a  stream  of  fine 
promise,  and  rolled  our  fancies  forward  to  its  beauti- 
ful banks  below,  its  dark  highlands,  its  glassy  reaches, 
and  the  forms  of  friends  on  lawns  and  in  gardens 
along  its  shores. 

We  dined  at  Glen's  Falls,  which  we  visited.    They 


128  LOTUS-EATING. 

are  oppressed  by  the  petty  tyranny  of  a  decayed 
dynasty  of  saw-mills,  and  the  vexed  river  rages  and 
tumbles  among  channelled  rocks,  making  a  fine  spec- 
tacle of  the  Trentonian  character.  Then  we  bowled 
along  through  a  brilliant  afternoon  toward  the  Lake. 
The  road  is  one  of  the  pleasantest  I  remember.  And 
particularly  on  that  day  the  grain-fields  and  the 
mountains  were  of  the  rarest  delicacy  of  tone  and 
texture.  Through  the  trees,  an  hour  from  Glen's 
Falls,  I  saw  a  sheet  of  water,  and  we  emerged  upon 
a  fine  view  of  the  Lake. 

An  azure  air,  of  which  the  water  seemed  only  a 
part  more  palpable,  set  in  hills  of  graceful  figure 
and  foliage,  and  studded  with  countless  isles  of  ro- 
mantic beauty — such  a  picture  as  imagination  touches 
upon  the  transparent  perfection  of  summer  noons, 
was  my  fancy  of  Lake  George. 

It  was  but  partly  true. 

Caldwell  is  a  hamlet  at  the  southern  end  of  the 
Lake.  It  is  named  from  an  eccentric  gentleman, 
(illiberal  obstinacy  is  always  posthumously  beatified 
into  eccentricity)  who  owned  the  whole  region,  built 
a  hotel  on  the  wrong  spot,  determined  that  no  one  else 
should  build  anywhere,  and  ardently  desired  that 
no  more  people  should  settle  in  the  neighborhood ; 
and,  in  general,  infested  the  southern  shore  with  a 
success  worthy  of  a  mythological  dragon.  Instead. 


LAKE    GEOKGE.  129 

therefore,  of  a  fine  hotel  at  the  extremity  of  the  Lake, 
commanding  a  view  of  its  length,  and  situated  in 
grounds  properly  picturesque,  there  is  a  house  on  one 
side  of  the  end,  looking  across  it  to  the  opposite 
mountain,  and  forever  teasing  the  traveller  with  won- 
der that  it  stands  where  it  does. 

The  hotel  is  kept  admirably,  however,  and  the 
faults  of  position  and  size  are  obviated,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, by  the  courtesy  and  ability  of  the  host.  But 
the  increasing  throng  of  travel  justifies  the  erection 
of  an  inn  equal  in  every  manner  to  the  best.  This 
year  the  little  hamlet  was  but  the  "  colony"  of  the 
hotel,  and  a  mile  across  the  Lake,  on  the  opposite 
shore,  was  a  small  house  for  the  accommodation  of 
the  public. 

Lake  George  is  a  strange  lull  in  excitement  after 
Saratoga.  Its  tranquillity  is  like  the  morning  after 
a  ball.  There  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  bowl  or  to  sit 
upon  the  piazza,  or  to  go  fishing  upon  the  Lake.  It 
is  a  good  place  to  study  fancy  fishermen,  who  have 
taken  their  piscatory  degrees  in  Wall  and  Pearl- 
streets.  Most  of  the  visitors  are  guests  of  a  night, 
out  there  are  also  pleasant  parties  who  pass  weeks 
upon  the  Lake,  and  listen  to  the  enthusiastic  stories 
of  Saratoga  as  incredulously  as  to  Syren-songs ;  to 
whom  Saratoga  is  a  name  and  a  vapor,  incredible  as 
the  fervor  of  a  tropical  day  to  the  Eussian  Empress 


130  LOTUS -EATING. 

in  her  icy  palace  ;  parties  of  a  character  rare  in  our 
country,  who  do  not  utterly  surrender  the  summer  to 
luxurious  idleness,  but  steal  honey  from  the  flowers 
as  they  fly. 

And  if,  strolling  upon  the  piazza,  while  the  moon 
paves  a  quivering  path  across  the  water,  along  which 
throng  enchanted  recollections,  a  quiet  voice  asks  if 
Como's  self  is  more  lovely,  you  are  glad  to  say  to  one 
who  understands  it,  your  feelings  of  the  difference 
between  European  and  American  scenery.  We  were 
watching  the  water  from  the  piazza,  over  the  low 
trees  in  the  garden,  when  the  empress  said  to  me, 
"Now  is  it  not  more  beautiful  than  Como?"  It  was 
an  unfortunate  question,  because  the  Lake  of  Como 
is  the  most  beautiful  lake  the  traveller  sees,  and  be- 
cause the  details  of  comparisons  were  instantly  forced 
upon  my  mind. 

Lake  George  is  a  simple  mountain  lake  upon  the 
verge  of  the  wilderness.  You  ascend  from  its  banks 
westward  and  plunge  into  a  wild  region.  The  hills 
that  frame  the  water  are  low,  and  when  not  bare — 
for  fires  frequently  consume  many  miles  of  wood- 
land on  the  hillsides — covered  with  the  stiffly  out- 
lined, dark  and  cold  foliage  of  evergreens.  Among 
these  are  no  signs  of  life.  You  might  well  fancy  the 
populace  of  the  primeval  forest  yet  holding  those  re- 
treats. You  might  still  dream  in  the  twilight  that  it 


LAKE    GEORGE.  131 

were  not  impossible  to  catch  the  ring  of  a  French  or 
English  rifle,  or  the  wild  whoop  of  the  Indian ;  sure 
that  the  landscape  you  see,  was  the  same  they  saw, 
and  their  remotest  ancestors. 

From  the  water  rise  the  rocks,  sometimes  solitary 
and  bearing  a  single  tree,  sometimes  massed  into  a 
bowery  island. 

The  boat-boys  count  the  isles  of  the  Lake  by  the 
days  of  the  year,  and  tell  you  of  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five.  It  is  a  story  agreeable  enough  to  hear, 
but  wearisome  when  the  same  thing  is  told  at  every 
pretty  stretch  of  islanded  water.  In  the  late  after- 
noon or  by  moonlight,  it  is  pleasant  to  skim  the  quiet 
Lake  to  the  little  Tea  Island,  which  has  a  tree-shel- 
tered cove  for  harbor  and  on  which  stands  a  ruined 
temple  to  T.  But  whether  bohea,  or  gunpowder,  or 
some  more  mysterious  divinity,  the  boat-boys  reluct 
to  say,  and  you  must  rely  on  fancy  to  suggest.  I 
only  know,  that  as  we  pushed  aside  the  branches 
that  overhang  the  cove  and  climbed  to  the  Island 
and  the  Temple,  we  had  no  sooner  set  foot  upon  its 
floor,  and  gazed  dreamily  forth  over  the  Lake,  which 
the  moon ,  enchanted,  than  the  slow  beat  of  oars 
pushed  through  the  twilight,  and  directly  across  the 
mbon-paven  path  of  the  water  shot  a  skiff  with  female 
figures  only. 

The  throb  of  oars  approached,  and  singing  voices 


• 

132  LOTUS-EATING. 


mingled  with  the  beat.  The  boat  drove  silently  into 
the  black  shadow  of  the  cove,  the  singing  ceased,  and 
a  hushed  tumult  of  low  laughter  trembled  through 
the  trees.  For  that  moment  I  was  a  South  Sea  Island- 
er, a  Typeean,  a  Herman  Melville,  and  down  the 
ruined  steps  I  ran  to  catch  a  moonlight  glimpse  of 
Fayaway,  but  saw  only  the  rippling  brilliance  of  the 
rapidly  fading  boat.  Therefore  I  know  not  what 
forms  they  were,  nor  the  moonlight  mysteries  of 
Lake  George,  nor  of  the  little  T  Island, 

"  What  leaf-fringed  legend  haunts  about  thy  shape, 
Of  Deities,  or  Mortals,  or  of  both." 

Another  day  we  spread  our  sails  and  flew  four 
miles  up  the  Lake  to  Diamond  Island.  It  has  a  little 
stony  beach,  on  which  crystals  are  found,  and  here 
also  are  ruins,  but  of  nothing  more  stable  than  Eobin 
Hood's  temples.  A  faded  bower,  spacious  enough 
for  the  pavilion  of  the  loveliest  May  Queen,  and  ro- 


LAKE    GEORGE.  133 

mantic  enough  for  a  trap  of  Fancy  to  catch  reveries, 
is  the  ruin  of  the  Island. 

The  brisk  wind  that  blew  us  rapidly  thither  drooped 
as  it  passed  the  faded  bower,  and  the  lake  lapped 
idly  against  the  stones  as  we  embarked  for  Caldwell. 
We  drifted  homewards  in  gusts  and  calms,  while  a 
gorgeous  sunset  streamed  from  behind  the  western 
mountains.  It  faded  into  pensive  twilight,  the  very 
hour  of  Wordsworth's  lines — 

How  richly  glows  the  water's  breast 
Before  us,  tinged  with  evening's  hues, 
While,  facing  thus  the  crimson  West, 
The  boat  her  silent  course  pursues. 
And  see  how  dark  the  backward  stream, 
A  little  moment  past  so  smiling! 
And  still,  perhaps,  with  faithless  gleam, 
Some  other  loiterers  beguiling. 

Such  views  the  youthful  bard  allure, 

But  heedless  of  the  following  gloom, 

He  dreams  their  colors  shall  endure, 

Till  peace  go  with  him  to  the  tomb. 

— And  let  him  nurse  his  fond  deceit, 

And  what  if  he  must  die  in  sorrow, 

Who  would  not  cherish  dreams  so  sweet, 

Though  grief  and  pain  may  come  to-morrow. 

All  this  was  pleasant,  but  all  this  does  not  make  a 
lake  as  beautiful  as  Como.  Here,  at  Lake  George, 
is  no  variety  of  foliage.  The  solemn  evergreens 
emphasize  the  fact  of  a  wild  primeval  landscape 
Were  there  brilliant,  full-foliaged  chestnuts,  or  lus 


134:  LOTUS-EATING. 

trous  vines,  to  vary  the  monotony  of  hue,  or  spiring 
cypresses  and  domed  stone  pines  to  multiply  differ- 
ent forms,  or  long  reaches  of  terraced  shore,  the 
melancholy  monotony  of  impression,  which  is  now  so 
prominent,  would  be  alleviated.  The  scene  is  too 
sad  and  lonely.  The  eye  is  tortured  by  the  doomed 
ranks  of  firs  and  hemlocks,  that  descend  like  resigned 
martyrs  to  the  shore.  It  is  not  sublime,  it  is  not  the 
perfection  of  loneliness,  it  is  not  the  best  of  its  kind. 
Yet  in  the  August  moonlight  the  empress  asked  me 
if  it  was  not  more  beautiful  than  Como. 

Consider  Como.  That  strip  of  water  blends  the 
most  characteristic  Swiss  and  Italian  beauty.  From 
the  dark  and  awful  shadow  of  the  Snow-Alj'-s  which 
brood  over  its  northern  extremity,  the  lake  stretches 
under  waving  vines  and  shimmering  olives,  (that 
look  as  if  they  grew  only  by  moonlight,  said  Mrs. 
Jameson's  niece,) — under  orange  terraces,  and  lem- 
ons and  oleanders,  under  sumptuous  chestnuts  and 
funereal  cypresses  and  ponderous  pines  and  all  that 
they  imply  of  luxurious  palaces,  marble  balusters, 
steps,  statues,  vases  and  fountains,  undei  these  and 
through  all  the  imagery  of  ideal  Italy,  deep  and  far 
into  the  very  heart  of  Southern  Italian  loveliness. 
And  on  the  shores  near  the  town  of  Como,  among 
the  garden  paths  or  hills  that  overhang  the  villas, 
you  may  look  from  the  embrace  of  Italy  straight  at 


LAKE    GEOKGE.  135 

the  eternal  snow-peaks  of  Switzerland — as  if  on  the 
divinest  midsummer  day  your  thought  could  cleave 
the  year  and  behold  December  as  distinctly  as  June. 

Lake  Como  is  the  finest  combination  of  natural 
sublimity  and  beauty  with  the  artistic  results  which 
that  sublimity  and  beauty  have  inspired.  This  is 
the  combination  essential  to  a  perfect  and  perma- 
nently satisfactory  enjoyment  in  landscape.  We 
modern  men  cannot  be  satisfied  with  the  satisfaction 
of  the  savage,  nor  with  that  of  any  partial  nature 
and  education. 

The  landscape  must  be  lonely  as  well  as  lovely,  if 
it  is  not  sublime.  We  have  a  right  to  require  in 
scenery  the  presence  of  the  improvement  which 
Nature  there  suggested.  In  the  Alps,  in  Niagara, 
in  the  Sea,  Nature  suggests  nothing  more.  They 
are  foregone  conclusions.  No  colossal  statue  carved 
from  a  cliff,  or  palace  hewn  from  a  glacier,  are  more 
than  curious.  Nor  can  you  in  any  manner  improve 
or  deepen  by  Art  the  essential  impression  of  natural 
features  so  sublime. 

When  I  speak  of  what  Art  can  do  for  the  land- 
scape, you  will  not  suppose  that  I  wish  Nature  to  be 
put  in  order,  or  that  there  should  be  only  landscape 
gardens.  The  wide  flowering  levels  of  the  Western 
Prairies,  rolling  in  billows  of  golden  blossoms  upon 
the  horizon,  have  a  supreme  and  peculiar  beauty, 


136  LOTUS-EATING. 

which  no  human  touch  can  improve,  and  the  lonely 
lakes  of  the  Tyrol,  dark  withdrawn  under  cliffs  that 
do  not  cease  to  frown,  charmed  in  weird  calm  which 
never  the  scream  of  wild  fowl  vexes,  these,  like  the 
Alps  and  the  Ocean,  and  Niagara,  are  beyond  the 
hope  of  Art. 

But  it  is  different  when  Nature  gives  no  landscape 
material,  when  the  forms  of  hill  and  shore  are  mo- 
notonous or  unimportant  of  themselves,  yet  suggest 
a  latent  possibility  of  picturesque  effects. 

This  is  not  irreverent  meddling  with  Nature,  it  is 
only  following  her  lead.  Has  no  one  observed  how 
often  the  absence  of  water  in  the  landscape  leaves 
the  landscape  dead  ?  Was  never  a  castle  so  placed 
upon  hill  or  by  river  side  that  it  grieved  the  eye  of 
taste  ?  What  I  say  aims  only  at  removing  the  occa- 
sion of  such  grief.  The  inextricable  mazes  of  a  forest 
are  not  imposing  when  you  are  entangled  among 
them.  A  boundless  forest  is  only  sublime  when  the 
eye  commands  it  by  overlooking  it.  The  forest  is 
only  the  rude  grandeur  of  the  block ;  but  the  groves 
and  gardens  which  wait  upon  the  civilizing  footsteps 
that  unravel  those  mazes — are  the  graceful  statue 
and  the  fine  result. 

So  when  the  Empress  said  to  me,  "  Is  it  not  more 
beautiful  than  Como  ?"  I  said,  no.  Yet  it  is  impossible 
not  to  perceive  the  great  capabilities  of  Lake  George. 


LAKE    GEORGE. 


137 


The  gleam  of  mar-/ 
ble  palaces,  or 
of  summer 
treats  of  any  genuine^ 
beauty,  even-- 
a  margin  of 
grain-goldened  __.™^£ 
shore,  or  ranges  of' 
whispering  rushes  beneath 
stately  terraces — indeed,  any 
amelioration  of  Nature  by 
Art,  would  perfect  the  loveliness  of  ^ 
Lake  George,  and  legitimate  the  Em-\ 
press's  praises.  At  present  it  is  in-  '' 
vested  with  none  of  that  enchanted  atmosphere  of 
romance  in  which  every  landscape  is  more  alluring. 
Its  interest  and  charm  is  the  difference  between  an 
Indian  and  a  Greek,  between  pigments  and  a  picture. 

Do  not  suppose  that  I  am  maligning  so  fair  an 
object  as  the  lake,  even  while  I  regard  it  as  a  good 
type  of  the  quality  of  our  landscape,  compared  with 
the  European.  Space  and  wildness  are  the  proper 
praises  of  American  scenery.  The  American  in  Eu- 
rope, with  the  blood  of  a  new  race  and  the  hope  of  a 
proportioned  future  tingling  in  his  veins,  with  a  pro- 
found conviction  that  Niagara  annihilates  all  other 
scenery  in  the  world,  and  with  a  decided  disposition 


138  LOTUS-EATING. 

to  assert  that  Niagara  is  the  type  of  the  country,  pro- 
claims the  extent  of  that  country  as  the  final  argu- 
ment in  the  discussion  of  scenery  and  bears  down 
with  inland  seas  and  the  Father  of  Waters,  and  pri- 
meval forests  and  prairies  and  Andes,  to  conclude 
his  triumph. 

In  the  general  vague  vastness  of  the  impression 
produced,  this  is  a  genuine  triumph.  But  it  is  a 
superiority  which  appeals  more  to  the  mind  than  to 
the  eye.  The  moment  you  travel  in  America  the 
victory  of  Europe  is  sure.  For  purposes  of  practical 
pleasure  we  have  no  mountains  of  an  alpine  sublim- 
ity, no  lakes  of  the  natural  and  artificial  loveliness 
of  the  European,  although  one  of  ours  may  be  large 
enough  to  supply  all  the  European  lakes.  We  have 
few  rivers  of  any  romantic  association,  no  quaint 
cities,  no  picturesque  costume  and  customs,  no  pic- 
tures or  buildings.  We  have  none  of  the  charms 
that  follow  long  history.  We  have  only  vast  and 
unimproved  extent,  and  the  interest  with  which  the 
possible  grandeur  of  a  mysterious  future  may  invest 
it.  One  would  be  loth  to  exhort  a  European  to  visit 
America  for  other  reasons  than  social  and  political 
observation,  or  buffalo  hunting.  We  have  nothing 
so  grand  and  accessible  as  Switzerland,  nothing  so 
beautiful  as  Italy,  nothing  so  civilized  as  Paris,  noth- 
ing so  comfortable  as  England.  The  idea  of  the 


LAKE    GEOKGE.  139 

great  western  rivers  and  of  lakes  as  shoreless  to  the 
eye  as  the  sea,  or  of  a  magnificent  monotony  of  grass 
or  forest,  is  as  impressive  and  much  less  wearisome 
than  the  actual  sight  of  them. 

But  a  charm  which  is  in  the  variety  and  the  detail, 
as  much  as  in  the  general  character,  is  only  appreci- 
able by  the  eye,  and  that,  of  course,  is  the  triumph  of 
European  scenery.  The  green  valleys  of  Switzerland 
which  relieve  and  heighten,  by  contrast,  the  snowy 
sublimity  of  the  mountains  ;  the  Madonna  shrines  in 
vineyards  and  the  pretty  paraphernalia  of  religion 
in  Italy ;  the  cultivated  comfort  of  the  English  land- 
scape, in  whose  parks  each  tree  stands  as  if  it  knew 
itself  to  be  the  ornament  and  pride  of  ancestral 
acres,  and  the  artificial  grotesqueness  of  the  French 
chateaux — all  these  you  must  see  if  you  would  know, 
and  your  final  impression  is  of  a  fine  aggregate  with 
beautiful  and  characteristic  details. 

Then  we  have  no  coast  scenery.  The  Mediterra- 
nean coast  has  a  character  which  is  unequalled. 
The  sea  loves  Italy  and  laves  it  with  beauty.  It  has 
an  eternal  feud  with  us.  Our  shores  stretch,  shrink- 
ing in  long,  low  flats,  to  the  ocean,  or  recoil  in  bare, 
gray,  melancholy  rocks.  Our  coast  is  monotonous 
and  tame  in  form,  and  sandy  and  dreary  in  sub- 
stance. Trees  reluct  to  grow;  fruit  yearns  for  the 
interior;  a  sad  dry  moss  smooths  the  rocks  and 


140  LOTUS-EATING. 

solitary  spires  of  grass  shiver  in  the  wind.  But  the 
Italian  sea  is  mountain-shored ;  and  all  over  the 
mountain  sides  the  oranges  grow,  and  the  tropical 
cactus  and  vines  wave,  and  a  various  foliage  fringes 
the  water.  You  float  at  morning  and  evening  on  the 
Gulf  of  Salerno,  or  the  Bay  of  Naples,  and  breathe 
an  orange-odored  air.  The  vesper  bell  of  the  con- 
vent on  the  steep  sides  of  the  Salerno  mountains 
showers  with  pious  sound  the  mariners  below.  They 
watch  the  campanile  as  they  sail,  and  a  sweetness  of 
which  their  own  gardens  make  part,  follows  their 
flight.  You  can  fancy  nothing  more  alluring  than 
these  coasts,  and  nothing  more  mysterious  and  im- 
posing than  the  mountains  of  Granada  looming  large 
through  the  luminous  mist  of  the  Spanish  shore. 
This  last  is  the  scenery  of  Ossian. 

All  this  implies  one  of  the  grandest  and  most 
beautiful  natural  impressions,  and  one  of  which  our 
own  sea-coast  is  totally  destitute.  And  it  is  only  an 
illustration  of  the  absolute  superiority  of  European 
scenery,  in  very  various  ways.  The  tendency  of 
American  artists  toward  Europe  as  a  residence,  is 
based  not  only  upon  the  desire  of  breathing  a  social 
atmosphere,  in  which  Art  is  valued,  or  of  beholding 
the  galleries  of  fame,  but  also  upon  the  positive  want 
of  the  picturesque  in  American  scenery  and  life. 
Water,  and  woods,  and  sky  are  not  necessarily  pictu- 


LAKE    GEORGE.  141 

resque  in  form,  or  combination,  or  color,  and  here 
again,  tnere  must  be  beautiful  details,  and  the  human 
impress  of  Art  upon  them,  to  satisfy  the  sense  that 
craves  the  picturesque. 

I  sat  one  evening  on  the  cliffs  at  Newport  with 
Mot  Notelpa,  a  friend  who  wears  the  onyx  ring,  of 
which  Sterling  has  written  so  good  a  story — and  as 
we  were  discussing  America,  Mot,  the  gentleman  of 
two  hemispheres,  said  to  me :  "  America  is  only  a 
splendid  exile  for  the  European  race."  The  saying 
was  no  less  forcible  than  fine,  but  I  have  no  room  to 
follow  its  meaning  here.  He  did  not  say  or  mean 
that  it  was  a  pity  to  be  born  an  American,  or  deny 
the  compensation  which  gives  us  our  advantages. 

No  man  who  has  traversed  Europe  with  his  eyes 
and  mind  open  has  failed  to  see  that  as  our  great 
natural  advantage  is  space,  so  our  great  social  and 
political  advantage  is  opportunity,  and  every  young 
man's  capital  the  chance  of  a  career.  But  the  race 
as  a  unit,  cultivated  to  the  point  of  Art,  is  exiled, 
wherever  the  laws  of  Nature  postpone  Art. 

You  may  be  sure  that  I  said  no  such  thing  to  the 
Empress,  as  in  the  moonlight  she  provoked  the  com- 
parison. 

But  the  "  No"  of  my  reply  meant  all  that.  And 
when,  the  next  morning,  we  steamed  in  a  stiff  gale 
from  Caldwell  to  Crown  Point,  the  unhumanized 


142  LOTUS-EATING. 

solitude  of  the  shores  accorded  well  with  the  dusky 
legends  of  Indian  wars  that  haunt  the  Lake.* 

Lake  George  should  be  the  motto  of  a  song  rather 
than  the  text  of  a  sermon,  I  know.  But  it  is  beauti- 
ful enough  to  make  moralizing  poetry.  It  is  the 
beauty  of  a  country  cousin,  the  diamond  in  the  rough, 
when  compared  with  the  absolute  elegance  and  fas- 
cination of  Como.  Nor  will  I  quarrel  with  those 
whom  the  peasant  pleases  most — especially  if  they 
have  never  been  to  court. 


N  AH  ANT. 


IX. 


SEPTEMBER. 

H!  which  were  best,  to  roam  or  rest? 
/The  land's  lap  or  the  water's  breast  1 
To  sleep  on  yellow  millet-sheaves, 
Or  swim  in  lucid  shallows,  just 

Eluding  water-lily  leaves, 
An  inch  from  Death's  black  fingers,  thrust 
To  lock  you,  whom  release  he  must; 
Which  life  were  best  on  Summer  eves  1 


NAHANT  is  a  shower  of  little  brown  cottages,  fallen 
upon  the  rocky  promontory  that  terminates  Lynn 
Beach. 

There  is  a  hotel  upon  its  finest,  farthest  point, 
which  was  a  fashionable  resort  a  score  of  years  since. 
But  the  beaux  and  belles  have  long  since  retreated 
into  the  pretty  cottages  whence  they  can  contemplate 
the  hotel,  which  has  the  air  of  a  quaint,  broad-pi- 
azzad,  sea-side  hostelry,  with  the  naked  ugliness  of  a 
cotton  factory  added  to  it,  and  fancy  it  the  monu- 
ment of  merry,  but  dead  old  days. 

G 


146  LOTUS-EATING. 

The  hotel  is  no  longer  fashionable.  Nahant  is  no 
more  a  thronged  resort.  Its  own  career  has  not  been 
unlike  that  of  the  belles  who  frequented  it,  for  al- 
though the  hurry  and  glare  and  excitement  of  a 
merely  fashionable  watering-place  are  past,  there  ' 
has  succeeded  a  quiet,  genial  enjoyment  and  satis- 
faction, which  are  far  pleasanter.  Some  sunny  morn- 
ing, when  your  memory  is  busy  with  Willis's  sparkling 
stories  of  Nahant  life  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  and 
with  all  the  pleasant  tales  you  may  have  collected  in 
your  wanderings,  from  those  who  were  a  part  of  that 
life,  then  step  over  with  some  friend,  whose  maturity 
may  well  seem  to  you  the  flower  of  all  that  the  poet 
celebrated  in  the  bud,  and  she  will  reanimate  the 
spacious  and  silent  piazza  with  the  forms  that  have 
made  it  famous.  And  ever  as  you  stroll  and  listen, 
your  eyes  will  wander  across  the  irregular  group  of 
cottages,  and  prohibit  your  fancying  that  the  ro- 
mance is  over. 

This  is  a  kind  of  sentiment  inseparable  from  spots 
like  this.  They  concentrate,  during  a  brief  time,  so 
many  and  such  various  persons,  and  unite  them  so 
closely  in  the  constant  worship  and  pursuit  of  a  com- 
mon pleasure,  that  the  personal  association  with  the 
spot  becomes  profound  ;  and  when  the  space  is  very 
limited,  as  at  Nahant,  even  painful.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising, therefore,  that  many  who  loved  and  fre- 


NAHANT.  147 

quented  Nahant  years  ago,  now  recoil  from  it,  and 
only  visit  it  with  the  same  fascinated  reluctance  with 
which  they  regard  the  faded  love-tokens  of  years  so 
removed  that  they  seem  to  have  detached  themselves 
from  life.  This  will  explain  to  you  much  of  the  sur- 
prise with  which  Bostonians  listen  to  your  praises  of 
Nahant.  "Is  any  thing  left?"  say  their  smiles  and 
looks ;  "  it  is  a  cup  we  drained  so  long  ago." 

Yet  no  city  has  an  ocean-gallery,  so  near,  so  con- 
venient and  rapid  of  access,  so  complete  and  satis- 
factory in  characteristics  of  the  sea,  as  Boston  in 
Nahant. 

You  step  upon  the  steamer  in  the  city  and  in  less 
than  an  hour  you  land  at  Nahant,  and  breathe  the 
untainted  air  from  the  "boreal  pole,"  and  gaze  upon 
a  sublime  sea-sweep,  which  refreshes  the  mind  as  the 
air  the  lungs.  You  find  no  village,  no  dust,  no  com- 
motion. You  encounter  no  crowds  of  carriages  or 
of  curious  and  gossiping  people.  No  fast  men  in 
velvet  coats  are  trotting  fast  horses.  You  meet  none 
of  the  disagreeable  details  of  a  fashionable  watering- 
place,  but  a  sunny  silence  broods  over  the  realm  of 
little  brown  cottages.  They  stand  apart  at  easy  dis- 
tances, each  with  its  rustic  piazza,  with  vines  climbing 
and  blooming  about  the  columns,  with  windows  and 
doors  looking  upon  the  sea. 

In  the  midst  of  the  clusters,  where  roads  meet, 


L48  LOTUS-EATING. 

stands  a  small  Temple,  a  church  of  graceful  propor- 
tions, but  unhappily  clogged  with  wings.  It  is  the 
only  Catholic  Church  I  know,  for  all  services  are 
held  there  in  rotation,  from  the  picturesque  worship 
of  the  Roman  faith  to  the  severest  form  of  Protes- 
tantism. The  green  land  slopes  away  behind  the 
Temple  to  a  row  of  willows  in  a  path  across  the  • 
field,  whence  you  can  not  see  the  ocean,  and  it  is  so 
warm  and  sheltered,  like  an  inland  dell,  that  the 
sound  of  the  sea  comes  to  it  only  as  a  pleasant 
fancy. 

This  pretty  path  ends  in  the  thickest  part  of  the 
settlement.  But  even  here  it  has  no  village  air.  It 
is  still,  and  there  are  no  shops,  and  the  finest  trees 
upon  the  promontory  shadow  the  road  that  gradually 
climbs  the  hill,  and  then,  descending,  leads  you  across 
little  Nahant  to  Lynn  Beach.  The  area  of  Nahant 
is  very  small.  From  almost  any  cottage  porch  you 
survey  the  whole  scene.  But  it  has  these  two  great 
advantages  for  a  summer  sojourn  ;  an  air  of  entire 
repose,  for  there  seems  to  be  no  opportunity  or  con- 
venience for  any  other  than  a  life  of  leisure,  and  the 
perpetual  presence  of  the  sea. 

At  Nahant  you  can  not  fancy  poverty  or  labor. 
Their  appearance  is  elided  from  the  landscape.  Tak- 
ing the  tone  of  your  reverie  from  the  peaceful  little 
Temple  and  glancing  over  the  simple  little  houses, 


NAHANT.  149 

with  the  happy  carelessness  of  order  in  their  distri- 
bution, and  the  entire  absence  of  smoke,  dust,  or  din, 
you  must  needs  dream  that  Pericles  and  Aspasia 
have  withdrawn  from  the  capital,  with  a  choice  court 
of  friends  and  lovers,  to  pass  a  month  of  Grecian 
gaiety  upon  the  sea.  The  long  day  swims  by  nor 
disturbs  that  dream.  If  haply  upon  the  cliifs  at  sun- 
set, straying  by  "  the  loud-sounding  sea,"  you  catch 
glimpses  of  a  figure,  whose  lofty  loveliness  would 
have  inspired  a  sweeter  and  statelier  tone  in  that  old 
verse,  you  feel  only  that  you  have  seen  Aspasia,  and 
Aspasia  as  the  imagination  beholds  her,  and  are  not 
surprised ;  or  a  head  wreathed  with  folds  of  black 
splendor  varies  that  pure  Greek  rhythm  with  a  Span- 
ish strain, — or  cordial  Saxon  smiles  and  ringing 
laughter  dissolve  your  Grecian  dream  into  a  western 
reality. 

For  its  sea,  too,  Nahant  is  unsurpassed.  You  can 
not  escape  the  Ocean  here.  It  is  in  your  eye  and  in 
your  ear  forever.  At  Newport  the  Ocean  is  a  luxury. 
You  live  away  from  it  and  drive  to  it  as  you  drive 
to  the  Lake  at  Saratoga,  and  in  the  silence  of  mid- 
night as  you  withdraw  from  the  polking  parlor,  you 
hear  it  calling  across  the  solitary  fields,  wailing  over 
your  life  and  wondering  at  it.  At  Nahant  the  sea  is 
supreme.  The  place  is  so  small  that  you  can  not 
build  your  house  out  of  sight  of  the  Ocean,  and  to 


150  LOTUS-EATING. 

watch  the  splendid  play  of  its  life,  is  satisfaction  and 
enjoyment  enough.  Many  of  the  cottages  are  built 
directly  on  the  rocks  of  the  shore.  Of  course  there 
are  few  trees,  except  the  silver  poplar,  which  thrives 
luxuriantly  in  the  salt  air,  and  which,  waving  in  the 
fresh  wind  and  turning  its  glistening  leaves  to  the 
sun,  is  like  a  tree  in  perpetual  blossom.  Flowers  are 
cherished  about  some  of  the  houses,  and  they  have 
an  autumnal  gorgeousness  and  are  doubly  dear  and 
beautiful  on  the  edge  of  the  salt  sea  waste. 

The  air  which  the  ocean  breathes  over  the  spot  is 
electrical.  No  other  ocean-air  is  so  exhilarating. 
After  breakfast  at  Nahant,  said  Mot,  I  feel  like 
Coeur  de  Lion,  and  burn  to  give  battle  to  the  Sara- 
cens. But  the  brave  impulse  ends  in  smoke,  and 
musing  and  chatting,  and  building  castles  in  the 
clouds,  you  loiter  away  the  day  upon  the  piazza,  end- 
ing by  climbing  about  the  cliffs  at  sunset  or  galloping 
over  the  beach.  Thus  the  ocean  and  the  cliffs  are 
the  natural  glories  of  Nahant,  and  the  sky  which  you 
see  as  from  the  deck  of  a  ship,  and  which  adequately 
completes  the  simple  outline  of  the  world  as  seen 
from  those  rocks. 

The  cliffs  are  imposing.  They  are  the  jagged 
black  edges  of  rock  with  which  the  promontory  tears 
the  sea.  Chased  by  the  tempests  beyond,  tho  ocean 
dashes  in  and  leaping  upon  the  rocks  lashes  them 


NAHANT. 


151 


with  the  fury  of  its  scorn.     In  a  great  gale  the  whole 
sea  drives  upon  Nahant. 

One  day  the  storm  came,  sullen  and  showery  from 
the  East,  scudding  in  blinding  mists  over  the  sea, 
breaking  towards  the  blue, — struggling,  wailing, 
howling,  losing  the  blue  again,  with  a  sharper  chill 
in  its  breath  and  a  drearier  dash  of  the  surf.  Then 


an  awful  lull,  an  impenetrable  mist,  and  the  hoarse 
gathering  roar  of  the  ocean.  The  day  darkened,  and 
sudden  sprays  of  rain,  like  volleys  of  sharp  arrows, 
rattled  gustily  against  the  windows,  and  dull,  boom- 
ing thunder  was  flattened  and  dispersed  in  the  thick 
moisture  of  the  air.  But  in  the  gust  and  pauses  of 
the  wind  and  rain,  the  bodeful  roar  of  the  sea  was 


152  LOTUS-EATING. 

constant  and  increasing.  The  water  was  invisible, 
except  in  the  long  flashing  lines  of  surf  that  moment- 
ly plunged  from  out  the  gray  gloom  of  the  fog,  and 
that  surf  was  like  the  advancing  lines  of  an  unknown 
enemy  flinging  itself  upon  the  shore.  Behind  was 
the  mighty  rush  of  multitudinous  waters,  but  more 
awful  to  imagination  than  any  mere  natural  sound 
could  be,  for  all  the  dead  and  lost,  all  who  sailed 
and  never  came  to  shore,  all  who  dreamed,  and 
hoped,  and  struggled,  and  went  down,  and  a  world 
of  joy  with  them ;  all  their  woe  was  in  the  Ocean's 
wail,  the  death  shriek  of  as  much  happiness  as  lives. 
So  the  storm  gathered  terribly  over  the  sea,  in  terror 
commensurate  with  the  sea's  vastness,  and  beat  upon 
Nahant  like  a  hail  of  fire  upon  a  besieged  citadel. 
The  next  day,  as  children  seek  upon  a  battle-field, 
the  buttons  and  ornaments  that  adorned  the  heroes, 
there  were  figures  bending  along  the  shore,  to  find 

the  delicate,  almost  impalpable  mosses,  which  the 

• 

agony  of  the  sea  tosses  up,  as  fragments  of  song 
drop  from  the  torture  of  the  heart.  The  mosses  are 
pressed  and  cherished  in  volumes,  each  of  which  is  a 
book  of  songs — of  the  airiest  fancies — of  the  aptest 
symbols — of  the  delicatest  dreams  of  the  sea.  Noth- 
ing in  nature  is  more  touching  and  surprising,  noth- 
ing more  richly  reveals  her  tenderness  than  these 
fair-threaded  and  infinitely  various  sea-weeds  and 


NAHANT.  153 

mosses.    They  are  the  still,  small  voices,  in  which  is 
the  Lord. 

Longfellow  has  sung  all  this  in  wave-dancing  music : 

So  when  storms  of  wild  emotion, 

Strike  the  Ocean 
Of  the  poet's  soul,  ere  long 
From  each  cave  and  rocky  fastness, 

In  its  vastness, 
Floats  some  fragment  of  a  Song. 

From  the  far  off  Isles  enchanted, 

Heaven  has  planted 
With  the  golden  fruit  of  Truth; 
From  the  flashing  surf,  whose  vision 

Gleams  Elysian 
In  the  tropic  clime  of  Youth. 

From  the  strong  will  and  the  endeavor, 

That  forever 

Wrestles  with  the  tides  of  Fate ; 
From  the  wreck  of  Hopes  far-scattered, 

Tempest-shattered, 
Floating  waste  and  desolate. 

Ever-drifting,  drifting,  drifting, 

On  the  shifting 
Currents  of  the  restless  heart ; 
Till  at  length  in  books  recorded, 

They,  like  hoarded 
Household  words,  no  more  depart. 

Nahant  would  not  satisfy  a  New  Yorker,  nor,  in- 
deed, a  Bostonian,  whose  dreams  of  sea-side  summer- 
ing are  based  upon  Newport  life.  The  two  places 
are  entirely  different.  It  is  not  quite  true  that  New- 
port has  all  of  Nahant  and  something  more.  For 


154  LOTUS-EATING. 

the  repose,  the  freedom  from  the  fury  of  fashion,  is 
precisely  what  endears  Nahant  to  its  lovers,  and  the 
very  opposite  is  the  characteristic  of  Newport. 

Nahant  is  northern  in  character,  and  Newport  is 
southern.  The  winds  blow  cool  over  Nahant,  and 
you  think  of  the  North  Sea,  and  Norsemen,  and  Vi- 
kings, and  listen  to  the  bracing  winds  as  to  Sagas. 

Yet,  if  a  man  had  any  work  to  do,  Nahant  opens 
its  arms  to  him,  and  folds  him  into  the  sweetest  si- 
lence and  seclusion.  It  has  no  variety,  I  grant.  You 
stroll  along  the  cliffs,  and  you  gallop  upon  the  beach, 
and  there  is  nothing  more.  But  he  is  a  Tyro  in  the 
observation  of  Nature,  who  does  not  know  that,  by 
the  sea,  it  is  the  sky-scape  and  not  the  landscape  in 
which  enjoyment  lies.  If  a  man  dwelt  in  the  vicinity 
of  beautiful  inland  scenery,  yet  near  the  sea,  his 
horse's  head  would  be  turned  daily  to  the  ocean,  for 
the  sea  and  sky  are  exhaustless  in  interest  as  in  beau- 
ty, while,  in  the  comparison,  you  soon  drink  up  the 
little  drop  of  satisfaction  in  fields  and  trees.  The 
sea  externally  fascinates  by  its  infinite  suggestion, 
and  every  man  upon  the  sea-shore  is  still  a  Julian  or 
a  Maddalo : 


-"because  the  sea 


Is  boundless  as  we  wish  our  souls  to  be." 
Besides,  it  is  always  the  ocean  which  is  the  charm 


NAHANT.  155 

of  other  shore  resorts,  that  have  more  variety  than 
Nahant.  Even  at  Newport  the  eye  is  unsatisfied 
until  it  rests  upon  the  sea,  and  as  sea-side  scenery 
with  us  is  monotonous,  there  is  rather  more  of  the 
same  thing  at  Newport  than  a  greater  variety.  The 
genuine  objection  to  Nahant  is  the  feeling  of  its  dul- 
ness,  on  the  part  of  the  young,  and  of  its  intense 
sadness  of  association  with  the  elders. 

The  air  is  full  of  ghosts  to  them.  At  twilight  they 
see  figures  glide  pallid  along  the  cliffs,  and  hear 
vague  voices  singing  airy  songs  by  moonlight  in  the 
rocky  caves  of  the  shore.  Every  stone,  every  turn  is 
so  familiar,  that  the  absence  of  the  look  and  the 
word,  which  in  memory  are  integral  parts  of  every 
rock  and  turn,  sharpen  the  sense  of  change  into  acute 
sorrow. 

Nor  to  the  visitor  of  to-day,  who  hears  the  stories 
of  old  Nahant  days  as  he  reads  romances,  is  it  possi- 
ble to  watch  without  tenderness  of  thought,  even 
without  a  kind  of  sadness,  if  you  will,  the  pleasant 
evening  promenade  along  the  Lynn  Beach.  They 
bound  over  the  beach  in  the  favoring  sunset,  those 
graceful  forms,  fresh  and  unworn  as  the  sea  that 
breaks  languidly  beside  them  and  slips  smoothly  to 
their  horses'  hoofs.  I  do  not  wonder  that  it  slips  so 
softly  toward  them  and  touches  their  flight  as  with  a 
musing  kiss.  I  do  not  wonder  that  it  breaks  balmily 


156  LOTUS-EATING. 

upon  their  cheeks,  and  lifts  their  hair  as  lightly  as 
if  twilight  spirits  were  toying  with  their  locks.  I  do 
not  wonder  that  as  they  turn  homeward  in  the  moon- 
light and  leave  the  sea  alone,  it  calls  gently  after 
them  and  fills  the  air  with  soft  sounds  as  they  retire, 
nor  that  it  rises  and  rises  until  it  has  gathered  into 
its  bosom  the  light  tracks  they  left  upon  the  shore. 
The  sea  knows  the  brevity  of  that  glad  bound  along 
the  beach.  These  are  not  the  first,  they  shall  surely 
not  be  the  last,  and  while  itself  shall  stay  forever 
fresh  and  unworn  as  now,  there  shall  be  furrows 
ploughed  elsewhere  which  even  its  waves  can  never 
smooth. 

The  evenings  at  Nahant  have  a  strange  fascination. 
There  are  no  balls,  no  hops,  no  concerts,  no  congre- 
gating under  any  pretence  in  hotel  parlors.  The 
damp  night  air  is  still,  or  throbs  with  the  beating  sea. 
The  Nahanters  sit  upon  their  piazzas  and  watch  the 
distant  lighthouse  or  the  gleam  of  a  lantern  upon  a 
sail.  Gradually  they  retire.  Lights  fade  from  the 
windows.  Before  midnight,  silence  and  darkness 
are  supreme.  But  we  who  remembered  Sorrento 
loved  the  midnight,  and,  singing  barcaroles,  dreamed 
our  dreams. 

One  night  we  sang  no  longer,  but  lost  in  silence 
watched  the  bay  as  if  it  had  been  the  bay  of  Naples, 
when  the  sudden  burst  of  a  distant  serenade  filled 


NAHANT.  157 

the  midnight.  It  was  the  golden  crown  of  delight. 
The  long,  wailing,  passionate  strains  floated  around 
us,  as  if  our  own  thoughts  had  grown  suddenly- 
audible,  and  the  vague  sadness,  the  nameless  and 
inexpressible  fascination  of  midnight  music  utterly 
enthralled  us.  Nothing  but  the  music  lived;  the 
world  was  its  own ;  we  floated  upon  it,  drifted  hither 
and  thither  as  it  would.  There  was  no  moon,  but 
the  serenade  was  moonlight.  There  were  no  gardens 
to  sweeten  the  night,  but  the  music  was  a  bower  of 
Persian  roses  thronged  with  nightingales.  Songs  of 
Mendelssohn — the  Adelaide  of  Beethoven — Irish 
melodies,  whatever  was  melancholy,  and  exquisite, 
and  meet  for  the  hour  and  the  spot,  pulsed  towards 
us  upon  the  night, — and  last  of  all,  a  wild,  sweet, 
pensive  strain,  for  which  surely  Shelley  meant  his 
lines  : 


I  arise  from  dreams  of  thee, 

In  the  first  sweet  sleep  of  night, 
When  the  winds  are  breathing  low, 

And  the  stars  are  shining  bright. 
I  arise  from  dreams  of  thee, 

And  a  spirit  in  my  feet, 
Has  led  me — who  knows  howl 

To  thy  chamber  window,  sweet! 

The  wandering  airs  they  faint 
On  the  dark,  the  silent  stream— 

The  champak  odors  fail 
Like  sweet  thoughts  in  a  dream; 


158  LOTUS-EATING. 

The  Nightingale's  complaint, 

It  dies  upon  her  heart, 
As  I  must  on  thine, 

Beloved  as  thou  art. 

0  lift  me  from  the  ground, 

I  die,  I  faint,  I  fail ! 
Let  thy  Love  in  kisses  rain 

On  my  lips  and  eyelids  pale. 
My  cheek  is  cold,  and  white,  alas! 

My  heart  beats  loud  and  fast, 
Oh  !   press  it  close  to  thine  again. 

Where  it  will  break  at  last. 

At  Nahant  you  shall  live  with  the  sea  and  sky  and 
yet  not  lose  that  pleasant  social  intercourse,  which 
has  a  secret  sweeter  than  the  sea  or  the  sky  can 
whisper.  Society  at  Nahant  does  not  imply  the 
Polka,  indeed,  that  last  perfection  of  civilization,  but 
regard  it,  if  you  choose,  as  the  ante-chamber  to  the 
ball-room  of  Newport,  where  you  may  breathe  the 
fresh  air  awhile,  and  collect  your  thoughts,  and  see 
the  ocean  and  the  stars,  and  remember  with  regret 
the  days  when  happiness  was  in  something  else  than 
a  dance,  the  days  when  you  dared  to  dream. 

Nor  be  surprised,  if,  as  you  linger  on  those  cliffs, 
remembering,  one  of  the  ghosts  the  elders  see  should 
lay  his  light  hand  upon  your  shoulder,  and  whisper 
as  the  sun  sets. 

Break,  break,  break, 
On  thy  cold  gray  stones,  0  Sea ! 

And  I  would  that  my  tongue  could  utter 
The  thoughts  that  arise  in  me. 


NAHANT. 

0  well  for  the  fisher  boy, 
That  he  sings  in  his  boat  on  the  bay, 

0  well  for  the  sailor  lad, 
That  he  shouts  with  his  sister  at  play. 

And  the  stately  ships  go  on, 
To  their  haven  under  the  hill; 

But  0  for  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still. 

Break,  break,  break, 
At  the  foot  of  thy  crags,  0  Sea ! 

But  the  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  fled. 
Will  never  come  back  to  me. 


159 


NEWPORT, 


X. 


SEPTEMBER. 

KHE  Golden  Rods  begin  to  flame 
.along  the  road-sides,  and  in  the  pleas- 
ant gardens  of  Newport.      The 
gorgeous  dahlias  and  crisp  asters 
^marshal  the  autumnal  splendor  of 
^  the  year.    All  day  long,  Herrick's 
» -^Valedictory  to  the  Summer  has 
oeen  singing  itself  in  my  mind : 

Fair  daffodils,  we  weep  to  see 

You  haste  away  so  soon, 
As  yet  the  early-rising  Sun 

Has  not  attained  his  noon. 
Stay,  stay, 

Until  the  hastening  day 
Has  run; 

But  to  the  even  song, 
And  having  prayed  together,  we 

Will  go  with  you  along! 


164  LOTUS-EATING. 

We  have  short  time  to  stay  as  you, 

We  have  as  short  a  Spring, 
As  quick  a  growth  to  meet  decay, 

As  you  or  any  thing. 
We  die 

As  your  hours  do;  and  dry 
Away 

Like  to  the  Summer's  rain, 
Or  as  the  pearls  of  morning-dew, 

Ne'er  to  be  found  again. 


The  first  chill  breath  of  September  has  blown  away 
the  froth  of  fashion,  and  the  cottagers  anticipate 
with  delight  the  cool  serenity  of  the  shortening  days. 
The  glory  has  utterly  gone  from  that  huge,  yellow 
pagoda-factory,  the  Ocean  House.  The  drop  has 
fallen,  the  audience  is  departed,  the  lights  are  ex- 
tinguished, and  it  were  only  to  be  wished  that  the 
house  might  vanish  with  the  season,  and  not  haunt 
"the  year's  last  hours"  with  that  melancholy  aspect 
of  a  shrineless,  deserted  temple. 

I  fear,  however,  that  not  only  the  glory  of  a  sea- 
son, but  of  success,  has  left  the  "  Ocean."  The  flame 
of  fashion  which  burned  there  a  year  or  two  since, 
burned  too  intensely  to  last.  The  fickle  goddess, 
whose  temple  it  is,  is  already  weary  of  democratic, 
congregational  worship  and  affects  the  privacy  of 
separate  oratories.  They  rise  on  every  hand.  For 
fashion  dwells  in  cottages  now,  and  the  hotel  season 
is  brief  and  not  brilliant.  The  cottagers  will  come, 


NEWPOKT.  165 

indeed,  and  hear  the  Germania  play,  and  hop  in  the 
parlor ;  but  they  come  as  from  private  palaces  to  a 
public  hall,  and  disappear  again  into  the  magnificent 
mystery  of  "  cottage  life." 

When  I  first  knew  Newport  it  was  a  southern  re- 
sort for  the  summer.  The  old  Bellevue,  and  the 
present  Touro  House,  then  Whitfield's,  sufficed  for 
the  strangers.  It  was  before  the  Polka — before  the 
days  of  music  after  dinner — and  when  the  word 
"  hop"  was  unknown  even  at  Saratoga.  Every  body 
bathed  in  those  days,  and  all  bathed  together.  There 
was  a  little  bowling,  some  driving  and  riding,  but  no 
fast  horses  or  fast  men — above  all,  no  fast  women. 
The  area  on  the  hill,  of  which  the  Ocean  House  is 
the  centre,  was  an  unsettled  region.  There  were  not 
a  dozen  cottages,  and  the  quaint  little  town  dozed 
quietly  along  its  bay,  dreaming  only  of  the  southern 
silence,  which  the  character  of  the  climate  and  of  the 
visitors,  who  were  mainly  southerners,  naturally 
suggested. 

Newport  was  the  synonyme  of  repose.  An  in- 
genious commentator  would  surely  have  traced  the 
Yan  Winkles  to  a  Newport  origin,  although  as 
surely,  the  "Rip"  was  a  soubriquet  of  prophetic 
omen. 

In  those  good  old  days  New  York  loved  Saratoga, 
and  Newport  was  a  name  of  no  significance :  but 


166  LOTUS-EATING. 

the  Diana  of  that  Ephesus  looked  suddenly  seaward, 
and  a  flood  tide  of  fashion  rose  along  Narragansett 
Bay,  and  overflowed  Newport. 

Singular  are  the  deposits  it  left  and  is  leaving. 
This  amorphous  "Ocean  ;"  this  Grecian  "Atlantic  ;" 
this  "Bellevue"  enlarged  out  of  all  recognizable  pro- 
portions ;  this  whirl  of  fashionable  equipages,  these 
hats  and  coats,  this  confused  din  of  dancing  music, 
scandal,  flirtation,  serenades,  and  supreme  voice  of 
the  sea  breaking  through  the  fog  and  dust ;  this  sing- 
ing, dancing,  and  dawdling  incessantly;  this  crush- 
ing into  a  month  in  the  country  that  which  crowds 
six  months  in  town — these  are  the  foot-prints  of 
Fashion  upon  the  sea-shore — these  the  material  with 
which  we  build  the  golden  statue  to  our  Diana. 

Beyond  doubt,  Newport  is  the  great  watering-place 
of  the  country.  And  as  such,  as  assembling  yearly 
the  allied  army  of  fashionable  forces  from  every 
quarter,  it  is  the  most  satisfactory  point  from  which 
to  review  the  host  and  mark  the  American  aspect  of 
Fashion. 

A  very  little  time  will  reveal  its  characteristic  to  be 
exaggeration.  The  intensity,  which  is  the  natural  at- 
tribute of  a  new  race,  and  which  finds  in  active  busi- 
ness its  due  direction,  and  achieves  there  its  truest 
present  success,  becomes  ludicrous  in  the  social  sphere, 
because  it  has  no  taste  and  no  sense  of  propriety. 


NEWPORT.  167 

Society  is  as  mucli  a  sphere  of  art  as  any  of  the 
more  recognized  spheres.  To  be  rich,  and  to  visit 
certain  persons,  no  more  fits  a  man  or  woman  for 
society,  than  to  be  twenty  years  old  and  to  have  a 
palette  fits  him  to  be  an  artist.  When,  therefore,  a 
boy  embarks  in  business  at  ten  years  of  age  and  re- 
tires a  man  at  forty  or  fifty  with  a  fortune,  he  is  in 
the  situation  of  one  who  in  the  passionate  pursuit  of 
the  means  has  put  the  end  out  of  his  attainment.  He 
has  been  so  long  making  his  shoes  that  by  inaction 
his  feet  are  withered,  and  he  can  not  walk.  Yet 
the  same  man,  who  can  never  be  an  addition  or  an 
ornament  to  society,  which  demands  the  harmonious 
play  of  rare  gifts,  shall  be  very  eminent  and  useful 
in  that  active  life  which  requires  the  stern  labor  of 
very  different  powers. 

Thus,  as  wealth  is  a  primal  necessity  of  society, 
because  giving  it  a  pedestal,  and  allowing  its  gen- 
erous whims  and  fancies  full  play,  so  wherever 
wealth  is  not  an  antecedent,  but  must  be  acquired, 
the  force  and  maturity  of  talent  will  always  be  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  pedestal,  and  the  statue  will  be  light 
and  imperfect,  or,  what  is  worse,  an  imbecile  imita- 
tion. In  a  society  formed  under  such  circumstances, 
wealth  will  always  enjoy  an  unnatural  and  undigni- 
fied consideration. 

Now  the  test  of  a  man  is  his  manner  of  using 


168  LOTUS-EATING. 

means,  not  of  acquiring  them.  Any  adroit  laborer 
can  quarry  marble,  but  how  many  men  could  have 
wrought  the  Apollo  or  the  Yenus  ?  And  how  many 
men  who  have  made  fortunes  spend  money  well  ? 

I  do  not  imply  that  they  are  not  generous,  and 
even  lavish ;  but  how  much  does  the  expenditure 
advance  the  great  common  interests  of  men?  In 
this  country  where  fortunes  are  yearly  made  and 
spent,  what  results  of  that  spending  have  we  to  show? 
We  have  carriages,  and  upholstery,  and  dinners,  and 
elaborate  houses,  and  the  waistcoats  of  Young  Amer- 
ica blaze  with  charms,  and  it  returns  from  "abroad" 
with  a  knowledge  of  Parisian  tailoring  and  haber- 
dashery, which  would  be  invaluable  in  the  first 
Broadway  establishment  interested  in  those  matters. 

But  consider  that  we  get  few  pictures,  statues, 
buildings,  gardens,  or  parks,  for  the  money  we  spend ; 
consider  that  no  rich  man  has  yet  thought  to  endow 
this  country  with  a  musuem  of  casts,  like  the  Meng's 
Museum  in  Dresden,  by  which  we  should  have  all 
the  finest  sculptures  of  every  age  in  the  most  perfect- 
ly accurate  copy,  only  differing  from  the  original  in 
the  material. 

"I  have  made  my  money,  and  I  am  not  going  to 
throw  it  away,"  is  the  response  of  Croesus  to  any 
such  suggestion  ;  and  he  builds  a  house  in  the  most 
fashionable  street  rather  larger  than  his  neighbor's, 


NEWPOKT.  169 

but  a  reproduction  of  it  in  every  upholstering  de- 
tail. 

Fine  plate  and  glass,  and  Louis  Quinze  and  Louis 
Quatorze  deformities  follow,  and  Croesus,  Jr.  lias  a 
pair  of  2  40's,  and  a  wagon  of  weight  proportioned 
to  the  calibre  of  that  young  gentleman ;  and,  as  he 
dashes  up  the  Newport  dust,  some  cynical  pedestrian 
Timon,  whitened  and  blinded  by  that  dust,  can  not 
help  inquiring  if  this  is  the  best  statue  that  could  be 
wrought  out  of  all  the  marble  old  Croesus  quarried ! 

The  houses,  and  horses,  and  carriages  are  not  to 
be  derided;  for,  as  I  said  already,  these  are  the 
pedestal ;  they  are  the  matters  of  course.  But  to 
the  eye  of  the  money-making  genius,  they  are  valua- 
ble for  themselves,  and  not  as  means,  and  there  is 
the  necessary  mistake  of  a  society  so  constituted.  If 
a  man  buys  a  luxurious  carpet,  not  that  his  friends 
may  tread  softly  and  their  sense  be  soothed,  but  that 
it  may  proclaim  his  ability  to  buy  the  carpet,  that  it 
may  say  with  green  and  red  and  yellow  emphasis — 
"  at  least  twenty  thousand  a  year" — it  is  no  longer 
beautiful,  and  you  feel  the  presence  of  a  man  who  is 
mastered  by  his  means,  and  to  whom  any  other  man 
with  a  larger  rent  roll  will  be  respectable  and  awful 

From  all  this  spring  the  ludicrous  details  of  our 
society.  We  dress  too  well ;  we  dance  too  well :  we 
are  too  gracious  and  graceful;  our  entertainments 

H 


170 


LOTUS-EATING. 


are  too  elegant ;  our  modesty  degenerates  into  pru- 
dery and  bad  taste ;  we  are  "  smart,"  but  not  witty ; 
flashy,  but  not  gay. — Young  America  is  too  young. 
Its  feet  are  beautifully  small,  and  the  head  is  pro- 
portioned to  them.  Society  is  only  a  ball.  The  heels 
have  carried  it  against  the  head  ;  and  why  not,  since 
the  education  and  daily  life  of  the  youth  fits  him  for 
little  else  than  shaking  his  heels  adroitly. 

We  dance  because  we  are  unable  to  talk.  The 
novels  of  foreign  society  fascinate  us  by  their  tales 
of  a  new  sphere.  Where  are  such  women,  we  say, 
where  such  men?  We  fancy  it  is  the  despairing 
dream  of  a  romance,  but  it  is  really  the  fact  of 
foreign  life. — We  are  very  chivalric ;  no  nation 
reaches  our  point  of  courtly  devotion  to  woman  as 
woman.  But  our  chivalry  is  not  entirely  unfeuda- 


NEWPORT.  171 

lized;   our  courtliness  does  not  always  indicate  re- 
spectful intercourse. 

When  I  say  that  we  dance  too  well,  I  speak  of  the 
disproportion  of  those  performances  to  the  rest  of  our 
social  achievements.  A  fool  crowned  is  doubly  fool- 
ish. Fine  dressing  and  dexterous  dancing,  when  not 
subsidiary  to  the  effect  of  personal  beauty  and  char- 
acter, are  monstrous.  Every  girl  who  dances  grace- 
fully, should,  in  speaking,  show  that  she  is  of  graceful 
and  winning  nature.  If  she  does  not — if  she  is  silly 
and  simpers — you  instinctively  feel  that  her  move- 
ment is  artificial ;  that  it  is  the  gift  of  the  dancing 
school,  not  a  grace  of  nature ;  you  have  been  de- 
ceived, and  it  is  never  again  a  pleasure  to  watch 
that  dancing. 

What  is  high  society  but  the  genial  intercourse  of 
the  highest  intelligences  with  which  we  converse  ? 
It  is  the  festival  of  Wit  and  Beauty  and  Wisdom. 
Its  conversation  is  a  lambent  light  playing  over  all 
subjects,  as  the  torch  is  turned  upon  each  statue  in 
the  gallery.  It  is  not  an  arena  for  dispute.  Courts 
and  Parliaments  are  for  debate.  Its  hall  of  reunion, 
whether  Holland  House,  or  Charles  Lamb's  parlor, 
or  Schiller's  garret,  or  the  Tuileries,  is  a  palace  of 
pleasure.  Wine,  and  flowers,  and  all  successes  of  art, 
delicate  dresses  studded  with  gems,  and  graceful 
motion  to  passionate  and  festal  music,  are  its  orna- 


172  LOTUS-EATING. 

merits  and  arabesqued  outlines.  It  is  a  tournament 
wherein  the  force  of  the  hero  is  refined  into  the  grace 
of  the  gentleman — a  masque,  in  which  womanly  sen- 
timent blends  with  manly  thought.  This  is  the  noble 
idea  of  society,  a  harmonious  play  of  the  purest 
powers.  Nothing  less  than  this  satisfies  the  demand 
suggested  by  human  genius  and  beauty,  and  the 
splendid  sphere  of  the  world  in  which  they  are 
placed. 

Yes,  you  say,  and  how  much  of  all  this  have  you 
found  in  Newport. 

At  least  I  have  found  the  form  of  it ;  and  he  must 
have  travelled  in  vain,  who  could  not  see,  on  some 
Grecian  summer  morning,  even  thus  late  in  time, 
Alcibiades  heading,  with  silken  sails,  for  the  Peireus, 
or  here  in  Newport  the  features  of  a  truly  fine  socie- 
ty through  the  fog  of  fashion. 

The  very  exaggeration  we  have  remarked  betrays 
a  tendency  as  well  as  a  failure.  When  we  have 
gone  through  our  present  discipline  of  French  and 
English  social  bullying,  from  the  shape  of  our  shoes 
up  to  that  of  our  opinions,  we  shall  be  the  stronger 
to  take  the  field  for  ourselves.  Yet  I  doubt  if  in  any 
country  in  which  wealth  is  not  hereditary,  so  that  a 
permanent  and  large  class  is  secure  from  the  neces- 
sity of  some  kind  of  gold  digging,  whereby  man  be- 
comes of  the  earth,  earthy,  there  can  ever  be  the 


NEWPORT.  173 

simplest  and  finest  tone  of  society.  The  aggregate 
will  be  better,  but  will  the  single  specimens  be  as 
good? 

I  do  not  insist  upon  it.  It  is  a  speculation.  Yet, 
perhaps,  this  perfection  of  the  individual  is  the  jewel 
in  the  toad's  head — the  real  result  of  the  elaborate 
aristocratic  organization  of  the  old  world,  which,  I 
grant,  was  too  cumbrous  an  operation  for  such  a 
result. 

The  old  mystery,  myth,  fable,  fancy,  or  whatever 
else,  that  labor  came  by  the  fall,  will  still  suggest 
itself.  We  make  the  best  of  a  bad  case,  and  poets 
and  philosophers  speculate  how  to  make  labor  "  at- 
tractive." But  the  end  of  our  labor  is,  all  the  while, 
to  dispense  with  labor. 

"You  lazy  fellow,"  says  the  working  merchant  to 
his  friend  who  was  an  heir.  "But  why  are  you 
working,"  retorts  the  heir  upon  the  merchant,  "  but 
to  secure  the  laziness  I  enjoy?" 

At  all  events,  hard  labor,  in  any  fair  sense  of  the 
word,  is  incompatible  with  the  finest  beauty,  whether 
personal  or  intellectual,  and  therefore  with  the  most 
delicate  bloom  of  society.  But  we  Americans  are 
workers  by  the  nature  of  the  case,  or  sons  of  laborers, 
who  spend  foolishly  what  they  wisely  won.  And, 
therefore,  New  York,  as  the  social  representative  of 
the  country,  has  more  than  the  task  of  Sisyphus.  It 


174  LOTUS-EATING. 

aims,  and  hopes,  and  struggles,  and  despairs,  to 
make  wealth  stand  for  wit,  wisdom  and  beauty.  In 
vain  it  seeks  to  create  society  by  dancing,  dressing, 
and  dining,  by  building  fine  houses  and  avoiding  the 
Bowery.  Fine  society  is  not  exclusive,  does  not 
avoid,  but  all  that  does  not  belong  to  it  drops  away 
like  water  from  a  smooth  statue. — We  are  still  peas- 
ants and  parvenues,  although  we  call  each  other 
princes  and  build  palaces.  Before  we  are  three 
centuries  old  we  are  endeavoring  to  surpass,  by  imi- 
tating, the  results  of  all  art  and  civilization  and  so- 
cial genius  beyond  the  sea.  By  elevating  the  stand- 
ard of  expense,  we  hope  to  secure  select  society,  but 
have  only  aggravated  the  necessity  of  a  labor  inte- 
grally fatal  to  the  kind  of  society  we  seek. 

It  would  be  unfortunate  if  we  were  all  drones,  and 
it  is  foolish  for  any  man  to  speak  of  labor  in  general 
as  inimical  to  society.  But  I  speak  of  that  labor 
which  is  really  drudgery,  which  is  unfair  to  a  man's 
intellectual  nature.  Hans  Sachs  was  a  shoemaker, 
but  it  is  no  less  true  that  incessant  hammering  of 
sole  leather  also  hammers  the  cobbler's  just  devel- 
opment away. 

One  extreme  is  as  bad  as  the  other.  The  drudge 
whose  life  is  drained  away  in  the  inexorable  toil  of  a 
mine  or  a  factory,  is  as  sad  an  object  as  the  prodi- 
gal, whom  wealth  softens  into  imbecility.  The  polar 


NEWPORT.  175 

zone  freezes,  the  tropics  burn,  the  realms  of  the  equa- 
tor sleep  in  golden  calm  between. 

Fine  Society  is  a  fruit  that  ripens  slowly.  We 
Americans  fancy  we  can  buy  it.  But  you  might  as 
well  go  to  market  for  fresh  peaches  in  January. 
Noble  aims  and  sincere  devotion  to  them — the  high- 
est development  of  mind  and  heart — the  fine  aroma 
of  cultivation  which  springs  from  the  intimacy  with 
all  that  human  genius  has  achieved  in  every  kind — 
simplicity  and  integrity — a  soul  whose  sweetness 
overflows  in  the  manner  and  makes  the  voice  win- 
ning and  the  movement  graceful — here  is  the  recipe 
for  fine  society,  and  although  much  of  this  is  impos- 
sible, as  for  instance,  high  and  various  cultivation, 
without  wealth,  yet  wealth  of  itself  cannot  supply  the 
lowest  element.  The  wealth  of  a  foolish  man  is  a 
pedestal  which  the  more  he  accumulates  elevates 
him  higher,  and  reveals  his  deformity  to  a  broader 
circle. 

These  most  obvious  facts  are  rarely  remembered. 
Gilded  vulgarity  believes  itself  to  be  gold.  But  in 
vain  we  "  cut"  and  discriminate  and  eschew,  now 
warmly  here  and  coldly  there,  as  if  many  a  Marquis 
of  unsullied  blood,  did  not  dine  for  ten  cents  in 
Florence,  and  lie  abed  while  his  shirt  was  washed, 
and  then  enter  the  saloons  of  fashion  as  a  King  his 
Council  Chamber. 


176  LOTUS-EATING. 

We  separate  and  exclude,  as  if  some  fine  morning 
the  little  blackamoor  of  a  sweep  would  not  climb 
down  the  chimney,  and  fall  naturally  asleep  on  the 
best  bed,  soot  and  all,  though  he  may  never  have 
touched  linen  since  the  sheets  of  his  cradle. 

We  Americans  are  gifted  with  the  talent  of  getting 
rich.  But  the  money-getting  is  not  the  money- 
spending  genius,  and  the  former  nourishes  a  love  of 
wealth  as  an  end,  which  is  a  love  fatal  to  society. 
We  are  not  peculiar  in  our  regard  for  money,  but 
we  are  in  the  exclusiveness  of  our  regard  for  it. 
Wealth  will  socially  befriend  a  man  at  Newport  or 
Saratoga,  better  than  at  any  similar  spot  in  the  world, 
and  that  is  the  severest  censure  that  could  be  passed 
upon  those  places. 

But  life  at  Newport  is  not  all  moralizing,  even  with 
the  cynical  Timons  of  which  I  spoke,  and  if  you  will 
regard  this  chapter  as  our  chat  after  dinner,  upon 
the  piazza,  in  the  next  we  will  stroll  in  the  pleasant 
places  of  Newport. 


NEWPORT,  AGAIN, 


XL 


Jhrnpnrt,  again. 

SEPTEMBER. 

Island  was  originally  called 
Rhode  Island  from  some  fancied 
resemblance  in  its  climate  to  that  of  the 
Isle  of  Rhodes.  I  do  not  wonder  at 
vr'4^N,the  suggestion,  for  Newport  is  washed 
**by  a  southern  sea  and  the  air  that 
breathes  over  it  is  soft  and  warm.  Its  climate  is  an 
Italian  air.  These  are  Mediterranean  days.  They  have 
the  luxurious  languor  of  the  South.  Only  the  mo- 
notonous and  melancholy  coast  reminds  you  that  you 
are  not  gazing  upon  Homer's  sea,  and  that  the  wind 
is  not  warmed  by  African  sands.  All  day — if  you 
have  been  in  Italy  and  know  its  Southern  shore, — 
you  look  for  the  orange  groves  and  vineyards ;  all 
night  you  listen  for  the  barcaroles. 

I  heard  a  simple  and  natural  explanation  of  the 


180  LOTUS-EATING. 

softness  of  the  Newport  climate,  which  attributed  it 
to  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  Gulf  Stream. 
The  current  suddenly  diverges  westward  near  the 
Island,  and,  according  to  the  story,  actually  touches 
it.  Hence  the  warmer  weather  and  softer  airs  here 
than  at  spots  not  far  removed,  especially  Nahant. 
Upon  leaving  Newport  the  line  of  the  Gulf  Stream 
stretches  westward,  leaving  a  broad  space  of  sea 
between  itself  and  the  Massachusetts  shore,  into 
which  flows  the  cold  water  from  the  north,  by  which 
the  winds  warmed  over  the  current  are  again  chilled, 
and  blow  into  Massachusetts  Bay  with  the  sharp 
sting  that  gives  a  name  to  Boston  east  winds.  Vast 
quantities  of  sea-weed  are  driven  in  upon  the  New- 
port coast,  also  indicating  the  neighborhood  of  the 
Gulf  Stream.  If  I  do  not  mistake,  this  course  is  laid 
down  in  Maury's  chart. 

But  from  whatever  cause,  the  climate  of  Newport 
is  very  bland  and  beautiful.  It  is  called  bracing, 
but  it  is  only  pure.  From  the  higher  land  of  the  in- 
terior of  the  island  you  may  see  the  ocean,  any  sunny 
day,  basking  and  sparkling  in  the  light,  seemingly 
girding  the  island  with  a  broad  visible  belt  of  warmth. 
If  you  see  it  across  smooth,  lawn-like  slopes,  with  a 
cluster  of  trees,  as  towards  the  Spouting  Horn,  it 
will  fascinate  you  no  less  than  Undine  was  fascina- 
ted, and.  draw  you  to  the  shore.  Follow  it  and  incline 


NEWPOBT.  181 

toward  the  Fort.  Pass  the  numerous  gates,  gallop 
along  the  hard  avenue  toward  Bateman's,  and  push 
on  to  the  shore  beyond.  Then  slowly  pace  along  the 
rocky  marge. 

The  waves  tumble  in  here,  fresh  and  full  from  the 
mid-sea.  To  the  right  is  the  southern  shore  of  the 
mainland,  and  by  the  light-house  upon  Beaver-Tail 
pass  the  sloops  and  schooners  heading  toward  Long 
Island  Sound.  It  is  not  a  friendly  coast;  for  at  a 
little  distance  in  the  sea  the  waves  break  and  foam 
over  hidden  rocks.  That  ledge  is  Brenton's  Eeef, 
and  here  in  the  sand,  on  the  very  shore,  stand  two 
head  stones,  side  by  side.  Their  silence  tells  the 
same  story  as  the  fret  fulness  of  the  rock-rent  waves 
beyond.  If  you  can  cross  a  stream  that  intervenes, 
and  are  not  appalled  by  stone  walls,  you  may  still 
keep  the  shore,  and  skirting  Lily  Pond  which  has 
the  stern  aspect  of  a  solitary  mountain  tarn,  and  is 
only  separated  from  the  sea  by  a  strip  of  sand,  you 
emerge  upon  the  crescent  beach  of  the  Spouting 
Horn,  a  throat  of  rock  in  the  cliff',  through  which, 
from  a  narrow  cave  below,  the  water,  during  storms, 
is  forced  some  forty  or  fifty  feet  into  the  air. 

Just  beyond  the  Spouting  Horn  is  the  southern 
point  of  the  Island.  It  is  a  rocky  bluff*,  planted  now 
in  corn,  but  from  the  highest  point  commanding  an 
unobstructed  horizon,  including  the  town  removed 


182 


LOTUS-EATING. 


into   picturesque   dis- 
tance, and  the  inter- 
pmediate  reaches  of 
Ugreen  field,  sprink- 
led with  occasion- 
al groups  of  trees. 
The  cliffs  around 
the         Spouting 
Horn    are    mag- 

^5zfT  nificent  ocean  features,  and 
-  the  shore  of  the  mainland 
i~ .v  .„  is  visible.      The   sea-sweep  en- 
u  folds  all,  satisfying  eye  and  mind. 

This  is  the  true  site  of  a  Newport 
residence.  The  situation  suggests  a 
cottage  of  the  same  general  character 
as  the  Nahant  houses.  No  one  could 
go  beyond  you,  no  one  could  interfere, 
and,  in  the  present  rapid  settlement 
of  the  island,  it  will  not  be  long  before  it  is  occu- 
pied. A  little  farther  on  are  the  finest  cliffs  in 
Newport,  upon  which,  after  southerly  storms,  the 
sea  dashes  itself  in  magnificent  surfs  that  set  the 
shore  in  flashing  foam.  These  are  the  haunts  of 
the  bass  fishers.  We  have  left  our  horses  behind, 
for  there  is  only  a  foot-path  along  the  cliffs,  and 
walls  and  fences  must  be  scaled.  But  by  a  hap- 


NEWPORT.  183 

py  old  condition  of  the  sale  of  these  lands,  the  path 
will  long  remain  public.  For  when  the  colonists 
took  the  land  from  the  Indians,  a  right  of  way 
along  the  sea  was  secured  to  them  forever,  for  fish- 
ing and  the  gathering  of  sea-weed.  At  least  so  runs 
the  tradition  at  Newport,  and  the  convenient  stiles 
and  holes  in  the  walls,  even  upon  properties  already 
settled,  confirm  its  practical  truth. 

— Or  is  it  only,  perhaps,  that  no  man  upon  this 
pleasant  island  feels  that  he  has  the  right  to  exclude 
others  from  the  sea-shore, — the  sea,  like  the  air, 
being  the  only  unquestioned  universal  heritage  in 
Nature  ?  The  fields  upon  the  cliffs  are  flat  and  tree- 
less. A  dry,  crisp  grass  carpets  them  quite  to  the 
edge  of  the  precipice.  It  is  thus  the  finest  ocean- 
walk,  for  it  is  elevated  sufficiently  for  the  eye  to 
command  the  water,  and  is  soft  and  grateful  to  the 
feet,  like  inland  pastures.  No  enterprise  has  yet 
perceived  that  the  true  situation  for  a  Newport  hotel 
is  upon  these  cliffs.  A  broad  piazza  over  the  sea 
would  brook  no  rival  in  attraction,  and  the  citizen 
who  sought  the  place  for  the  ocean  air,  and  the  ocean 
view,  would  not  turn  without  a  sigh,  back  into  the 
dusty  road,  upon  which  stands,  out  of  the  ocean's 
sight  and  sound,  the  glaring,  amorphous  pile  which 
is  his  home  for  the  nonce. 

In  the  serene  beauty  of  September  weather,  the 


184  LOTUS-EATING. 

cliffs  are  doubly  beautiful.  Fashion,  the  Diana  of 
the  Summer  Solstice,  is  dethroned ;  that  golden 
statue  is  shivered,  and  its  fragments  cast  back  into 
the  furnace  of  the  city,  to  be  again  fused  and 
moulded  ;  and  out  of  the  whirring  dust  and  din 
the  loiterer  emerges  into  the  meditative  autumnal 
air. 

"  A  feeling  of  sadness,"  says  Coleridge,  "a  pecu- 
liar melancholy,  is  wont  to  take  possession  of  me 
alike  in  Spring  and  in  Autumn.  But  in  Spring  it  is 
the  melancholy  of  hope ;  in  Autumn  it  is  the  melan- 
choly of  resignation."  Strolling  among  these  dry 
fields,  upon  the  sea,  you  may  perceive  plainly  enough 
the  difference.  In  the  beginning  of  the  month,  a 
cluster  of  days,  like  a  troop  of  tropical  birds,  with 
fiery  breath  and  plumage,  breathed  torrid  airs  over 
the  island.  It  was  the  final  ecstasy  and  festival  of 
summer.  But  a  huge,  black  cloud  gathered  one 
Saturday  afternoon,  and  with  lightning  and  flooding 
rain  dispersed  those  tropical  estrays,  and  left  us  cool 
and  quiet,  mind  and  body,  in  the  rich,  yellow,  au- 
tumnal light. 

Among  those  dry  fields  I  ramble  in  these  delicious 
but  melancholy  days,  looking  at  the  sea  and  again 
babbling  Herrick,  whose  few  good  verses,  among  all 
that  he  wrote,  are  like  the  few  drops  of  vino  cToro — 
wine  of  gold — distilled  from  the  must  of  Lebanon 


NEWPOKT.  185 

Vineyards.     What  pastoral  sweetness  and  genuine 
personality  of  feeling  in  this  poem. 

TO   MEADOWS. 

Ye  have  been  fresh  and  green; 

Ye  have  been  filled  with  flowers ; 
And  ye  the  walks  have  been, 

Where  maids  have  spent  their  hours. 

You  have  beheld  how  they, 

With  wicker  arts  did  come, 
To  kiss  and  bear  away 

The  richer  cowslips  home. 

You  Ve  heard  them  sweetly  sing, 

And  seen  them  in  a  round ; 
Each  virgin  like  a  Spring 

With  honey-suckles  crown'd. 

But  now  we  see  none  here, 

Whose  silv'ry  feet  did  tread, 
And  with  dishevelled  hair 

Adorn'd  this  smoother  mead. 

Like  unthrifts,  having  spent 

Your  stock,  and  needy  grown, 
You're  left  here  to  lament 

Your  poor  estates  alone. 

The  tenderness  of  feeling  excited  by  the  loveliness 
of  the  waning  year  begets  a  sympathy  for  this  season 
more  personal  than  for  any  other.  It  is  the  sympa- 
thy with  decline  and  death,  the  awe  before  the  mys- 
tery of  which  they  are  the  avenue  and  gate.  In  the 
journey  of  the  year,  the  Autumn  is  Venice,  Spring 
is  Naples  certainly,  and  the  majestic  maturity  of 


186  LOTUS-EATING. 

Summer  is  Home.  Not  dissimilar  is  the  feeling  with 
which  you  glide  through  the  shadow  of  crumbling 
Venetian  magnificence,  and  the  sentiment  with 
which  you  tread  the  gorgeous  bowers  of  Autumn. 
What  life,  what  hope,  what  illimitable  promise,  once 
filled  the  eye  here,  and  fed  the  imagination  !  Venice 
failed  to  fulfil  that  promise  to  experience.  Has  any 
summer  ever  kept  it  to  the  life  ? 

See  in  the  radiance  and  flashing  cloud- forms  of 
this  sky,  how  the  year  repeats  the  story  of  June,  how 
it  murmurs  these  dying  spring  songs  !  Upon  pen- 
sive thought  you  drift  through  the  splendors  of  the 
decadent  year,  as  in  a  black  gondola  through  Venice. 

Over  the  gleaming  watery  meadows, 
Through  the  dusk  of  the  palace  shadows, 
Like  a  dark  beam  mournfully  sliding, 
Steals  the  gondola,  silently  gliding. 

And  the  gardener,  this  morn  belated, 
Urges  his  flower-hung  barque,  fruit-freighted, 
Like  a  Summer-perfected  vision 
Through  the  dream  of  that  sleep  Elysian. 

To  these  palaces  ghostly  glory 

Clings,  like  the  faintly  remembered  story 

Of  an  old  diamonded  dowager,  mumbling 

Tales  of  her  youth  from  her  memory  crumbling. 

It  is  not  possible  to  shun  the  influence  of  these 
days.  The  deep  dome  of  the  sky  frescoed  by  the 
last  sunbeams  with  delicate  tracery  of  vapors  and  lu- 


NEWPORT.  187 

minous  masses  of  cloud,  the  endless  extent  of  the  sea, 
which  only  seems  small  when  you  are  upon  it,  the 
uniform  line  of  the  coast,  simple,  grand  material  out- 
lined as  grandly — these  store  your  mind  with  sweet 
and  solemn  imagery,  and  indicate,  even  here,  where 
the  wassail- worship  of  our  Ephesian  Diana  has  but 
now  reeled  away,  the  altar  of  the  unknown  God. 

ISTor  can  you  avoid  wondering  what  evidence  you 
shall  find  in  the  winter  that  the  city  has  summered 
upon  the  seaside.  If  yearly  we  are  thus  submitted 
to  the  most  beautiful  and  profound  natural  influences, 
and  the  tone  of  our  society  remains  still  as  fiercely 
frivolous,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  September  mus- 
ings of  a  cynical  Timon  make  him  still  more  cynical. 
How  can  he  help  dreaming  dreams  of  a  race  that 
should  show  throughout  their  winter  life  the  fresh- 
ness and  vigor  of  their  summer  neighborhood  ? 

If  a  young  man  passes  a  few  years  in  Europe  and 
returns  with  nothing  but  the  air  of  a  figure  in  the 
last  print  of  fashions,  he  can  only  please  the  ninth 
part  of  a  man.  He  will  pain  and  mortify  all  the 
rest.  His  mien,  and  motion,  and  conversation  should 
show  that  he  has  seen,  and  heard,  and  felt,  what  so 
many  yearn  to  behold,  because  they  could  see  to  the 
utmost,  yet  must  die  without  seeing. 

A  travelled  man  should  be  painting  and  sculpture. 
He  should  be  radiant  with  art  and  informed  with 


188  LOTUS-EATING. 

experience:  he  should  be  a  channel  into  the  new 
world  of  all  the  best  influences  of  the  old,  or  he  has 
defrauded  his  country,  himself,  and  those  who  might 
have  been  all  that  he  has  failed  to  be,  by  not  relin- 
quishing the  opportunity  to  another.  I  look  into  his 
eyes,  but  instead  of  the  Alps  and  Italy,  I  see  only 
the  Boulevards  or  Notre  Dame  de  Lorette.  I  hear 
him  speak,  and  catch  a  fine  French  oath,  but  no 
Miserere,  no  Oampagna  song  or  Barcarole.  I  mark 
his  manner  with  women,  but  I  do  not  perceive  that 
he  has  seen  Raphael's  Madonnas ;  with  men,  but  1 
do  not  feel  the  presence  of  the  Apollo  or  the  manli- 
ness of  Michael  Angelo.  Ixion  has  come  down  from 
heaven,  having  banqueted  with  all  the  Gods,  and 
remembers  only  the  pattern  of  the  table-cloth. 

If  this  is  our  high  requirement  of  the  individual 
who  has  enjoyed  fine  opportunities,  what  should  we 
not  demand  in  the  character  of  a  society,  which  every 
year  repairs  to  the  fountains  of  mental  and  physical 
health?  In  its  eye  should  be  the  clearness  of  the 
sky,  in  its  voice  the  sound  of  the  sea,  in  its  move- 
ment the  grace  of  woods  and  waves. 

It  is  very  well  to  carry  the  country  to  the  city,  but 
is  very  ill  to  bring  the  city  to  the  country.  The  in- 
fluence of  the  city  is  always  to  be  resisted,  because 
its  necessary  spirit  is  belittling,  personal,  and  selfish ; 
that  of  the  country,  on  the  other  hand,  is  to  be  fos- 


NEWPORT.  189 

tered,  because  it  is  impersonal  and  universal.  The 
exhilarating  stimulus  of  the  contact  of  men  in  the 
city  is  useful,  sometimes  essential,  but  always  dan- 
gerous. The  tranquillizing  friendliness  of  the  country 
favors  repose,  perhaps  inactivity  and  intellectual 
rest,  but  is  always  humane  and  elevating.  The  city, 
in  its  technical,  social  sense,  is  always  ludicrous,  and 
if  it  were  possible,  insulting  in  the  country.  There 
is  nothing  finer  in  Nature  and  Art  than  the  sublime 
scorn  inherent  in  their  virginal  purity.  A  great  pic- 
ture will  not  be  "seen,"  nor  a  grand  landscape 
"  done."  In  the  crowds  of  listless  idlers  who  infest 
Home  yearly,  how  many  see  the  Transfiguration,  or 
hear  the  Miserere,  or  know  the  profound  pathos  of  the 
Campagna  ?  Nature  and  Art  are  veiled  goddesses, 
and  only  Love  and  Humility  draw  the  curtains. 

"We  must  leave  in  the  city,  then,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  social  fictions  of  the  city,  if  we  hope  ever  to  mas- 
ter them  rather  than  to  be  mastered  by  them.  And 
that  is  precisely  what  is  most  rarely  done,  precisely 
what  we  Americans  do  less  than  any  other  people. 

I  remember,  as  we  floated  about  the  canals  in 
Venice,  how  we  used  to  imagine  a  life  and  society 
worthy  the  climate  and  the  poetic  city.  The  women 
of  those  fancies  were  of  beauty  so  rare,  and  of  char- 
acter at  once  so  lofty  and  lovely,  that  the  sumptuous 
palaces  and  the  superb  portraits  of  Titian,  and  Tin- 


190  LOTUS-EATING. 

toret,  and  Giorgione,  were  the  only  natural  homes  and 
ornaments  of  their  life.  The  men  of  those  dreams 
were  so  grave  and  gracious,  of  such  intellectual 
sweep,  of  such  subtle  human  sympathy,  that  no  por- 
trait in  the  great  council  hall  of  the  Doge's  palace 
quite  suggested  their  mien.  Life  was  a  festival 
worthy  its  sphere — worthy  the  illimitable  splendor 
and  capacity  of  the  world. 

They  were  but  gondola  dreams,  those  fancies, — 
the  articulate  song  of  the  mystery  and  magnificence 
of  Venice.  They  were  only  pictures  on  the  air — the 
evanescent  mirage  of  romance  that  hovers  about  that 
spot.  Yet,  was  it  strange  that  the  pleasant  dream 
inspired  by  so  singular  a  triumph  of  Art  as  the  city 
of  Venice  should  return  upon  the  cliffs  at  Newport, 
in  view  of  the  possibilities  and  influences  of  a  society 
just  beginning? 

Will  you  think  me  captious  if  I  confess,  what  we 
all  feel,  that  the  life  of  Nature — Nature,  whose  head 
is  Man — censures  our  life  more  than  any  philosophy  ? 
If  a  man  should  pass  suddenly  from  a  regal  midsum- 
mer day  in  Windsor  Forest  to  a  drawing-room  at  St. 
James,  would  he  feel  that  he  had  advanced  from  the 
less  to  the  greater  ?  The  trees  and  flowers  fulfil  their 
utmost  destiny ;  but  the  Eight  Honorable  Sir  Jabesh 
Windbag — as  Timon  Carlyle  dubs  the  courtier — does 
he  impart  a  finer  charm  to  the  summer  day  ? 


NEWPORT.  191 

It  was  not  strange  that  the  Venetian  life  recurred, 
but  it  was  sad.  We  shall  never  fulfil  the  destiny 
that  Hope  has  allotted  us,  since  Hope  always  paints 
human  portraits  with  the  colors  of  the  Ideal.  Even 
upon  these  cliffs  the  spring  promised  a  brighter  sum- 
mer than  was  possible ;  for  the  spring  is  a  poet,  and 
sings  to  us  in  our  speech  the  visions  beheld  in  another 
realm.  Life  is  a  rich  strain  of  music  suggesting  a 
realm  too  fair  to  be.  How  often  we  seem  to  touch 
the  edge  of  some  high  and  poetic  manner  of  life  ; 
how  we  revenge  ourselves  upon  drudgery  and  Wall- 
street,  by  fancying  an  eternal  summer  in  Naples 
Bay,  where  the  syrens  should  sing  in  the  moonlight 
and  every  fisher-girl  upon  the  shore  should  be  Gra- 
ziella.  Our  ancestral  estates — the  possibilities  of 
hope  of  which  we  are  heirs, — all  lie  in  the  future. 
In  the  golden  tropics  of  distance  flash  their  towers, 
and  their  trees  lean  over  singing  streams.  There  our 
coming  is  awaited,  and  the  bells  would  fain  chime 
that  we  are  of  age.  There,  looking  from  the  win- 
dows, or  deep  retired  in  interior  chambers,  the  beau- 
tiful who  were  our  dream  and  our  despair  await  us. 
Over  those  tropic  lands  the  sun  never  sets — those 
flashing  towers  do  never  crumble, — in  those  palace 
gardens  gush  the  fountains  of  eternal  youth,  and  all 
the  wide  horizon  forever  flames  with  summer. 

So  upon  the  most  distant  horizon  of  life  hope  floats, 


192 


LOTUS-EATING. 


,  beautiful  mirage.  To  reach  those 
i:  pleasant  places  is  the  aim  of  all 
endeavors.  A  man  would  be  rich,  that 
Ihe  may  have  a  fine  house  hung  with  pictures 
and  adorned  with  sculptures.  Even  the 
Jygreatest  drudge  pays  the  homage  to  his 
>nature,  of,  at  least,  saying  that.  In  youth  it 
vf  /seems  that  we  could  reach  out  our  hands  and 
ourselves  unlock  the  doors.  But  those  golden  gates 
shall  never  be  unbarred.  Gradually  they  recede, 
clouds  descend,  and  fogs  rise,  and  at  times  obscure 
the  spectacle  altogether.  We  resign  ourselves  to  our 
condition,  we  go  about  our  work,  but  still  that  stately 
domain  of  ours  glimmers  before  our  eyes — a  vision 
in  the  shifting  clouds  to  the  toiling  husbandman. 
Still,  strains  of  its  wild  and  winning  music  peal 
down  the  wind,  the  sweet  clang  of  court-revels  to  the 
lonely  wanderer. 


NEWPORT. 

Although  we  are  thus  defrauded  of  our  rights, 
royalty  never  dies  from  our  hearts,  and,  living  in 
hovels,  we  are  still  the  heirs  oL  palaces.  Strolling 
in  this  mood  beneath  the  September  sunsets  I  can 
yet  see  fair  and  graceful  figures  moving  along  the 
cliffs — fair  and  graceful  enough  to  walk  by  the  sea 
and  under  the  sky,  as  kings  and  queens  their  halls. 

The  great  enjoyment  at  Newport  is  riding.  The 
hard,  black  beach  is  the  most  perfect  race-course, 
and  the  heaving  of  the  sea  sympathizes  with  the 
rider  and  inspires  him.  The  finest  beach  in  New- 
port is  the  second,  a  mile  beyond  the  crescent  beach 
by  the  town,  but  it  always  seems  lonely  and  distant, 
and  can  only  be  gained  by  plowing  along  a  sandy 
road  among  the  wan  fields  upon  the  shore.  On  a 
pleasant  afternoon  the  first  beach  is  alive  with  run- 
ning horses,  and  light  wagons.  You  know  we  are 
dandies  in  our  carriages  as  well  as  in  our  dress,  and 
while  they  play  their  little  pranks  upon  the  edge  of 
the  sea,  which  plunges  slowly  and  heavily  along  the 
shore,  the  impression  is  that  of  the  recumbent  statue 
of  the  Nile  in  the  Vatican  and  the  garden  of  the 
Tuileries,  covered  and  pleased  with  the  gambols  of 
the  little  ones. 

One  evening  in  September  I  was  returning  with  a 
friend,  from  the  southern  shore  by  Bateman's.  It 
was  one  of  the  golden  twilights  which  transfigure  the 

I 


194  LOTUS-EATING. 

\vorld.  It  seemed,  in  fact,  as  if  we  were  very  near 
that  domain  which  lies  so  deep  in  the  future,  and 
our  horses  paced  sJong  cheerily,  as  if  they  shared 
the  exhilaration  of  the  hour.  We  passed  through 
tbe  town,  by  the  groups  sauntering  on  the  road  and 
sitting  under  the  piazzas  and  at  the  windows  of 
houses,  and  descended  to  the  first  beach.  The  sun 
was  just  gone  and  the  sky  was  a  dome  of  molten 
lead,  except  toward  the  eastern  horizon  upon  the 
sea,  where  gray  vapors  gradually  clouded  the  glory. 

We  turned  our  backs  upon  the  sunset  and  facing 
the  sea  and  the  gray  east  we  leaned  forward,  and 
our  horses  flew  over  the  beach.  They  did  not  seem 
to  touch  the  earth,  but  we  were  borne  on  as  if  by  the 
sway  of  the  sea.  Faster  and  faster  we  flew,  and  the 
cold  line  of  the  point  before  us,  stretching  far  into 
the  ocean,  and  the  dull  night  that  lowered  beyond  it, 
and  the  black  beach  beneath  us,  were  as  the  stern 
landscape  of  the  extremest  north  contrasted  with  the 
southern  splendors  we  had  left  behind.  It  was  wild 
and  elfish,  and  the  hoofs  of  the  horses  rang  like  the 
dumb  cadence  of  an  old  saga.  Our  hair  streamed 
on  the  wind  that  began  to  curdle  chill  across  the  sea, 
a*:d  gaining  the  end  of  the  beach  we  reined  up, 
turned  suddenly,  and  were  in  another  zone,  in  another 
world. 

The  west  was  gorgeous,  still,  and  warm.     The  lit- 


NEWPORT.  195 

tie  hill  on  which  stands  the  town,  and  the  fields  be- 
tween it  and  us,  were  a  belt  of  blackness  drawn 
between  the  glow  of  the  west  and  the  glossy,  glitter- 
ing smoothness  of  the  beach,  upon  whose  moist  sur- 
face the  slant  light  of  the  late  sunset  blended  with 
the  moonlight  that  quivered  along  the  crumbling 
ridges  of  the  surf.  The  sea,  beyond,  heaved  silvery 
far  into  the  night.  The  gorgeous  west — the  black 
land — the  glossy  beach — the  silvery  sea, — these  made 
up  the  world  in  that  moment,  nor  was  the  world  ever 
more  beautiful  and  sublime.  Along  the  way  paved 
with  gleams  of  sunset  and  of  rnoonrise,  our  horses 
slowly  paced.  No  realm  of  fairy  was  ever  more  sur- 
prising and  alluring ;  no  such  scene  was  yet  painted 
on  canvass  or  in  print ;  and  though  it  faded  every 
moment  and  the  world  resumed  its  old  expression, 
that  glance  has  bewildered  me  forever,  and  I  am  not 
sure  that  it  was  not  Undine  who  rode  with  me  that 
evening  and  compelled  the  sun,  moon,  and  sea  to 
offer  her  magnificent  homage. 

Like  all  sea-sides,  Newport  has  those  fogs  and 
mists  which  are  the  delight  of  artists — which  are 
themselves  artists  of  a  fantastic  fancy — and  to  which 
even  the  belles  are  not  always  averse,  for  what  the 
sun  does  the  fog  undoes,  being  the  rare  cosmetic  that 
removes  the  brown  scar  of  the  sun's  touch.  These 
fogs,  however,  are  not  always  pleasant.  They  are 


196  LOTUS-EATING. 

thick,  drenching  clouds,  and  wet  you  through  as 
thoroughly  as  the  most  insinuating  rain.  Moreover 
they  brood  over  your  spirits  with  a  dull  gloom  akin 
to  their  effect  in  extinguishing  the  landscape.  But 
in  coming  and  going,  and  wherever  they  are  not  too 
dense,  they  are  very  welcome  to  the  lover  of  the 
picturesque. 

In  the  morning,  perhaps,  and  especially  in  June 
and  September,  as  you  saunter  under  a  cloudless 
sky,  you  see  a  vague  roll  of  mist  muffling  the  horizon 
line  of  the  sea.  If  you  have  been  bounding  over  the 
beach  with  Undine,  the  evening  before,  you  are  ac- 
climated to  wonders,  and  fancy,  simply,  that  a  part 
of  the  sky  has  fallen  upon  the  sea.  Toward  dinner 
you  observe  that  it  is  nearer,  that  it  advances,  rolling 
over  the  sea  and  blotting  out  every  thing  in  its  path. 
The  sun  strikes  a  sail  between  you  and  it — there  is 
a  momentary  flash,  lost  in  the  dull  darkness  of  the 
mist. 

By  dinner-time  it  beleaguers  the  Island — it  over- 
comes it — it  penetrates  at  windows  and  doors.  Woe 
to  starched  muslin !  Woe  to  cravats  !  Woe  to  choice 
note  paper !  Woe  to  every  thing  but  India  rubber 
shoes.  The  band  may  well  play  in  the  hall  after 
dinner.  The  world  beyond  the  piazza  is  a  vast  white 
opacity, — the  ghost  of  the  ocean  which  thus  asserts 
the  sea's  sovereignty  over  the  Island.  It  is  damp 


NEWPORT.  197 

and  chill.  The  music  breathes  winning  waltzes, — 
but  who  could  dance  here,  save  mermaids — and  Un- 
dine, haply,  who  loves  the  mists,  and  clothes  herself 
with  the  grace  of  clouds  ?  The  horses  must  be  coun- 
termanded. A  slight  wind  shivers  through  the 
dampness  and  the  boughs  in  the  little  green  yard  by 
the  piazza  shed  a  string  of  diamonds.  The  gayety 
of  Newport  is  suddenly  quenched,  and  if  you  steal 
quietly  up  to  your  room,  and  opening  your  window, 
listen,  you  will  hear  the  invisible  sea  encompassing 
the  Island  with  its  ceaseless  dash,  and  booming  soft 
scorn  through  the  fog. 

It  breaks  suddenly,  and  in  rounding  masses  recedes. 
The  sun  bursts  through  the  mist  and  shines  into  our 
very  hearts.  The  clouds  roll  away  from  our  spirits, 
we  leap  into  the  saddle  and  give  galloping  chase  to 
the  skirts  of  the  foe.  Fold  upon  fold  it  sweeps  re- 
treating over  the  Island — embracing  the  few  melan- 
choly trees  and  leaving  them  glittering  ;  nor  pauses 
at  the  shore,  but  softly  over  the  water  the  flight  of 
the  fog  continues,  until  our  sky  is  rosy  again  as  in 
the  morning,  and  only  a  vague  roll  of  mist  muffles 
the  horizon  line  of  the  sea. 

I  rode  one  afternoon  with  Undine  along  the  south- 
ern shore  of  the  Island,  by  the  lonely  graves  of  which 
I  have  spoken.  We  could  see  only  a  few  feet  over 
the  water,  but  the  ocean  constantly  plunged  sullenly 


198  LOTUS-EATING.        x 

out  of  the  heavy  fog  which  was  full  of  hoarse  roars 
arid  wailings — the  chaotic  sound  of  the  sea.  We 
took  the  homeward  path  through  the  solitary  fields, 
just  unfamiliar  enough  to  excite  us  with  a  vague 
sense  of  going  astray.  At  times,  gleams  of  sun- 
light, bewildered  like  ourselves,  struggled,  surprised, 
through  the  mist  and  disappeared.  But  strange  and 
beautiful  were  those  estrays ;  and  I  well  understood 
why  Turner  studied  vapors  so  long  and  carefully. 

Two  grander  figures  are  not  in  contemporary  biog- 
raphy than  that  of  Coleridge,  in  Carlyle's  Sterling, 
looking  out  from  Highgate  over  the  mingled  smoke 
and  vapor  which  buries  London,  as  in  lava  Pompeii 
is  buried,  and  that  of  Turner,  in  some  anonymous, 
but  accurate,  sketches  of  his  latter  days,  at  his  cot- 
tage on  the  edge  of  London,  where,  apart  from  his 
fame,  and  under  a  feigned  name,  he  sat  by  day  and 
night  upon  the  house-top,  watching  the  sun  glorify  the 
vapors  and  the  smoke  with  the  same  splendor  that 
he  lavishes  upon  the  evening  west,  and  which  we 
deemed  the  special  privilege  of  the  sky.  Those  two 
men,  greatest  in  their  kind  among  their  companions, 
illustrate  with  happy  force  what  "Wordsworth  sang : 


In  common  things  that  round  us  lie, 
Some  random  truths  he  can  impart, 

The  harvest  of  a  quiet  eye 

That  brood?  and  sleeps  on  his  own  heart. 


NEWPORT.  199 

Gazing  from  his  Highgate  window  with  "  large, 
gray  eye,"  did  Coleridge  see  more  than  the  image 
of  his  own  mind  and  his  own  career,  in  that  limit- 
less city,  wide-sparkling,  many-turreted,  fading  and 
mingling  in  shining  mist — with  strange  voices  call- 
ing from  its  clouds— the  solemn  peal  of  cathedral 
chimes  and  the  low  voice  of  the  vesper  bell  ?  An 5 
out  of  that  London  fog  with  its  irresistible  splendors, 
and  out  of  the  holy  vapors  which  float  serene  amid 
the  Alps,  has  Turner  quarried  his  colossal  fame. 
There  is  no  grander  lesson  in  any  history  of  any  art, 
than  the  spectacle  of  the  greatest  painter  of  our 
time,  sitting  upon  his  house-top,  and  from  the  mist 
which  to  others  was  but  a  clog  and  inconvenience, 
and  associated  in  all  men's  minds  only  with  link 
boys  and  lanterns,  plucking  the  heart  of  its  mystery 
and  making  it  worshipped  and  remembered. 

In  the  evening  I  found  myself  alone  upon  the 
beach,  surrounded  by  the  fog.  I  seemed  to  be  upon 
the  hard  bottom  of  the  sea,  for  nothing  was  visible 
save  occasionally  the  moon,  as  the  fog  thinned  over 
my  head — the  seemingly  circular  spot  of  beach  upon 
which  I  stood — and  the  long,  white  seething  line  of 
surf  that  fell  exhausted  along  the  shore.  The  con- 
fused moan  of  the  sea  was  the  only  and  constant 
sound.  Fascinated  by  the  strangeness  of  the  scene, 
lost  in  the  fog,  whose  murky  chill  lay  ^damp  upon 


200  LOTUS-EATING. 

my  hands  and  face,  I  wandered  over  the  beach.  I 
ran,  but  could  not  escape  the  small  round  spot  of 
black  beach — the  encompassing  dead  white  cloud — 
the  moon,  blotted  out  and  again  revealed.  I  shouted 
aloud,  but  my  voice  fell  flat  and  lost,  and  the  mur- 
mur of  the  surf  boomed  in  melancholy  mockery.  I 
stood  still,  but  the  continuous  sound  did  not  destroy 
the  weird  silence.  I  ran  to  the  edge  of  the  sea ;  the 
watej*  broke  over  my  feet  and  slid  far  up  the  beach 
and  washed  my  tracks  away.  I  advanced  constantly 
with  no  sense  of  progress  and  saw  suddenly  a  huge, 
fantastic  figure  looming  ominously  through  the 
fog-cloud  and  confronting  me.  I  stopped  as  if 
an  army  had  risen  before  me,  then  ran  toward 
the  figure  which  dwindled  into  a  shapeless  block, 
left  upon  the  sand,  and  distorted  by  the  mist  into  a 
goblin. 

The  wildness  of  the  feeling  passed.  The  constant 
iteration  of  the  sea's  wail,  that  wandered  through 
the  enchanted  silence  as  if  seeking  sympathy,  grad- 
ually possessed  my  heart  with  its  own  sadness, -and 
as  the  fog  thinned  slowly,  and  wreathed  along  the 
beach,  curling  and  falling — skirts  of  the  flowing 
drapery  of  Ossian's  ghosts — that  exquisite  and  mourn- 
ful song  in  Alton  Locke  came  singing  into  my  mind. 
You  remember  the  scene  in  which  the  life  of  the 
young  poet  culminates  in  the  parlor  of  the  Bishop 


NEWPORT.  201 

and  in  the  presence  of  the  Lady  Eleanor.  She  has 
been  singing  a  wild,  melancholy  air,  of  which  the 
words  were  poor,  but  whose  meaning  the  poet  feels 
in  his  inmost  soul,  quickened  as  he  is  by  the  exhil- 
aration and  intoxication  of  passion  in  which  he  was 
reeling.  Lady  Eleanor  asks  for  some  words  fit  for 
the  melody,  and  struck  by  what  he  says,  appeals  to 
him  to  write  them. 

At  the  same  moment  his  eyes  fall  upon  a  water- 
color  of  Copley  Fielding's,  representing  a  long, 
lonely  reach  of  sea-beach — a  shroud  of  rain  drifting 
along  the  horizon,  and  straggling  nets  rising  and 
falling  upon  the  surf.  Its  utter  desolation,  though 
he  little  thinks  it  at  the  moment,  images  his  own 
life,  and  returning  home,  in  the  wild  whirl  of  name- 
less regret  and  passionate  sorrow,  he  writes  the  lines. 
It  is  a  rare  fortune  for  the  artist  that  his  picture  is 
so  perfectly  translated  into  words.  Who  that  feels 
the  penetrating  pathos  of  the  song  but  sees  the  rain- 
shroud,  the  straggling  nets  and  the  loneliness  of  the 
beach  ?  There  is  no  modern  verse  of  more  tragic 
reality. 

"  0,  Mary,  go  and  call  the  cattle  home, 
And  call  the  cattle  home, 
And  call  the  cattle  home, 
Across  the  sands  o'  Dee." 
The  Western  wind  was  wild  and  dark  wi'  foam, 
And  all  alone  went  she. 


202  LOTUS-EATING. 

The  creeping  tide  came  up  along  the  sand, 

And  o'er  and  o'er  the  sand, 

And  round  and  round  the  sand, 

As  far  as  eye  could  see  ; 
The  blinding  mist  came  down  and  hid  the  land, 

And  never  home  came  she. 

Oh!   is  it  weed,  or  fish,  or  floating  hair — 

A  tress  o'  golden  hair, 

0'  drowned  maiden's  hair 

Above  the  nets  at  seal 
Was  never  salmon  yet  that  shone  so  fair, 

Among  the  stakes  on  Dee. 

They  rowed  her  in  across  the  rolling  foam. 

The  cruel,  crawling  foam, 

The  cruel,  hungry  foam, 

To  her  grave  beside  the  sea; 
But  still  the  boatmen  hear  her  call  the  cattle  home 

Across  the  sands  o'  Dee. 

The  night  became  more  merciful  as  I  sauntered 
homeward  from  the  beach.  The  fog  rolled  away, 
the  unclouded  moon  shone,  and  the  air  was  warm 
and  still.  The  lights  were  extinguished  in  the  cotta- 
ges, only  in  the  great  hotels  some  windows  were  yet 
bright.  I  turned  up  a  lane  between  two  of  the  pleas- 
antest  places  upon  the  Island.  Through  the  moonlit 
trees,  like  ghosts  of  sound  haunting  the  moonlight, 
stole  the  faint  tinkle  of  a  guitar.  A  manly  voice, 
rich  and  full,  chimed  in  unison  and  sang  this  song  of 
Browning's,  amid  whose  pauses  the  lessening  mur- 
mur of  the  sea  wistfully  repeated  that  other  refrain — 

Oh !   is  it  weed,  or  fish,  or  floating  hair  ? 

•'  * 


NEWPORT.  203 

The  difference  was  that  between  the  moon-misted 
sea-beach  and  the  moonlight  garden. 

— There  's  a  woman  like  a  dew-drop,  she 's  so  purer  than  the 
purest ; 

And  her  noble  heart 's  the  noblest,  yes,  and  her  sure  faith 's  the 
surest ; 

And  her  eyes  are  dark  and  humid,  like  the  depth  on  depth  of 
lustre 

Hid  i'  the  harebell,  while  her  tresses,  sunnier  than  the  wild  grape's 
cluster, 

Gush  in  golden- tinted  plenty  down  her  neck's  rose-misted  marble, 

And  her  voice's  music— call  it  the  well's  bubbling,  the  bird's  war- 
ble. 

And  this  woman  says,  "  My  days  were  sunless  and  my  nights  were 

moonless, 

Parched  the   pleasant  April  herbage,  and   the  lark's   heart's  out- 
break tuneless, 
If  you  love  me  not" — and  I,  who  (ah,  for  words  of  flame !)  adore 

her! 

Who  am  mad  to  lay  my  spirit  prostrate  palpably  before  her — 
I  may  enter  at  her  portal  soon,  as  now  her  lattice  takes  me, 
And  by  noontide  as  by  midnight  make  her  mine  as  hers  she  makes 
me. 

I  hoped  to  have  told  you  of  the  Corso  or  semi- 
weekly  promenade  at  the  Fort,  which  began  gal- 
lantly enough,  but  declined  rapidly  because  velvet- 
coated  fast  gentlemen  would  trot  their  fast  horses 
over  the  ground  as  if  it  had  been  a  race-cpurse,  and 
because,  instead  of  forming  two  contrary  lines  of 
carriages,  to  enable  us  to  pass,  and  see,  and  chat,  or 
stopping,  as  at  the  Cascine  in  Florence,  for  conversa- 
tion, we  all  trotted  meekly  one  way  in  each  other's 


204  LOTUS-EATING. 

dust.  With  our  graceful  carriages  and  the  famed 
beauty  of  American  women,  this  should  be  one  of 
the  most  attractive  features  of  Newport.  But  our 
exaggeration  spoiled  it.  What  American  is  ever 
going  behind  1  What  is  the  use  of  a  2.40,  if  you  are 
to  walk  in  a  ring  ?  So  we  must  wait  a  little,  until 
jockeys  ripen  into  gentlemen  and  eagerness  mellows 
into  elegance.  I  wonder  if  a  wit  from  Mercury  com- 
ing to  summer  on  the  earth,  would  suspect  that  our 
Newport  aim  was  enjoyment. 

But  there  is  another  Fort,  a  circular  ruin  upon  the 
rocky  point  of  an  island  at  the  entrance  of  the  har- 
bor, which  you  can  reach  in  a  half-hour  from  New- 
port, and  is  well  worth  an  afternoon.  Deere  recruited 
a  party  one  day  for  the  excursion.  We  went  into  the 
town  and  put  off  from  the  wharf  in  a  fleet  sail-boat. 
The  harbor  was  white  and  alive  with  similar  craft, 
bending  in  the  wind  and  scudding  to  and  fro.  We 
passed  under  the  long,  low  embankment  of  Fort 
Adams  and  across  the  mouth  of  the  harbor  to  a  group 
of  mound-like  rocks.  Crowning  the  summit  of  one 
of  them  was  our  goal,  called,  appropriately  enough 
from  the  aspect  of  the  rocks,  Fort  Dumpling. 

You  glide  from  the  beautiful  harbor  directly  into 
the  smooth  water  of  the  cove-like  reaches  among  the 
rocks.  The  bright  vegetation  clinging  to  the  crevices 
of  their  sides  ifc  touched  Turneresquely  by  the  after- 


NEWPORT.  205 

noon  sun,  and  as  you  land  upon  the  island,  its  low, 
bare,  melancholy  outline  reminds  you  of  days  and 
feelings  upon  the  Eoman  Oampagna.  You  climb 
over  the  rocks,  and  pasture  lands  luxuriant  with 
scentless  asters,  crisp  everlasting,  and  yellow  golden 
rods,  and  find  them  the  only  garrison  of  the  ruined 
old  fort,  which  is  perched  upon  a  cliff  over  the  sea. 
They  nod  along  the  ramparts,  and  flame  in  the 
crumbling  walls.  Girls  toss  pebbles  through  the 
port-holes,  and  muse  upon  the  distant  sails  at  sea. 

But  best  of  all,  quaint  old  Newport  lies  white 
against  its  hill,  and  the  sinking  sun  plays  with  it, 
making  it  what  city  you  will,  of  all  the  famous  and 
stately  towns  upon  the  sea. 

Let  us  leave  it  so,  the  last  picture  of  a  pleasant 
Summer,  beneath  which  we  will  write  this  inscrip- 
tion: 

THE  REAPER. 

I  walked  among  the  golden  grain, 
That  bent  and  whispered  to  the  plain, 
"How  gaily  the  sweet  Summer  passes. 
So  gently  treading  o'er  us  grasses." 

A  sad-eyed  Reaper  came  that  way, 
But  silent  in  the  singing  day — 
Laying  the  graceful  grain  along, 
That  met  the  sickle  with  a  song. 

The  sad-eyed  Reaper  said  to  me, 

"  Fair  are  the  Summer  fields  you  see ; 


206  LOTUS-EATING. 

Golden  to-day — to-morrow  gray; 
So  dies  young  love  from  life  away." 

"  'T  is  reaped,  but  it  is  garnered  well," 
I  ventured  the  sad  man  to  tell : 
"  Though  Love  declines,  yet  Heaven  is  kind- 
God  knows  his  sheaves  of  life  to  bind." 

More  sadly  then  he  bowed  his  head, 
And  sadder  were  the  words  he  said, 
"  Tho'  every  Summer  green  the  plain, 
This  harvest  can  not  bloom  again." 


•'I 


